The Wonderful Life of Mister Schnee
by Fantastic Tales
Summary: What would you do with all the riches in the world? Party? Relax? Good works? Well, a man from Earth is about to find his answer to a similar question when he wakes up as one Mr. Schnee. He'd better find an answer quick, though; his daughter just kissed a Faunus on live television!
1. Chapter 1:Hard astarboard!

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.  
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 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

 _Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

His eyes snapped open, as if having forgotten the patterned lethargy which overcame them every morning.

Instinctively, his hand reached for where he knew there was nothing and tapped the scroll that lie there, abruptly silencing the annoyingly pleasant ring of the alarm.

Before his still groggy mind could process the incongruity, his body acted, pushing his arms back and raising his body up. From his new vantage point, he could see the soft bumps of his legs rising through the fluffy, white blanket that covered his gargantuan bed. Around him, he would have been able to see the clean and well designed, if sparsely decorated, bedroom which sheltered him; covering the floor, there was a warm, red carpet, decorated with a drawing of a large compass.

He wasn't paying attention to that, however. He was too busy tumbling out of bed and hopping about on each foot, screaming.

"Ahh, Ahh, Ahh," he yelled quietly as he took strange strides with unfamiliar legs. His teeth didn't fit, his fingers were in the wrong place, his mouth tasted weird, _nothing was right_.

It didn't hurt, or even feel bad; it was just disorienting, like looking at those moving-illusion pictures, except the moving illusion was his entire body, bones and all. It was the little things that set off this reaction, the minute twitches and strangely calibrated movements his body underwent, along with a quickly fading vertigo that overtook his senses. This reaction was why he was half walking, half running towards the large personal mirror that stood opposite his bed. Soon, he was leaning over the cabinet that supported the mirror, staring into the deep, blue eyes and hardened face of Mr. Schnee, the wealthiest individual on Remnant. Those were _his_ eyes, however. That was his face in the mirror. He moved his hand touch his face, and the reflection moved to do the same.

This was all too real to be a dream, he accepted. Dreams consisted of things you knew, and he'd never known the impossible feeling of being in another person's body. Quickly, he took in his new body, his gaze shifting all across the figure in the mirror before a flash of blue and white caught his interest. Slowly, his new, and somewhat sensitive, eyes were drawn upwards to gaze at the words which hung above him.

"eenhcS?" he read in confusion, turning swiftly afterwards to look at the space above his bed. "Schnee" the embroidered and snowflake-themed crest read. 'Am I in Germany?' the man thought, 'In the future?' his thought pattern continued as he saw the paper-thin slice of glass glowing softly on the mattress.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three light, chipper, knocks resounded across the heavy oak of his bedroom door, startling him as they echoed through the cavernous room around him to become an ominous rumble.

'Geeze, who sleeps in a place like this? Dracula?' he thought, cringing slightly as the sound slammed against his eardrums.

His thoughts were cut short when a feminine voice called, "Mr. Schnee? Are you ok?"

The muffling effect of the heavy door did nothing to conceal the urgency and worry lilting the voice.

"I'm ok," he rushed to respond, feeling strange as unfamiliar lips mouthed the words.

"Are you sure? I heard some bangs and some yelling," the woman on the other side continued.

"I'm perfectly ok," he responded.

'Perfectly ok? since when do I say that?' he thought with a confused expression.

"I just, uh, knocked something over," he continued, searching for something to distract the woman with.

"Oh! Do you want me to cal-"

"By the way," he interrupted, "what does my schedule for today look like?"

'Yeah, schedules. This Mister Schnee fellow looks like a man with schedules. Schedules for days, even.' he smiled at his quick thinking.

"Well, you're relatively clear for today, sir! You just have to host the Grand Opening Gala for the Messerschmitts. The staff finished preparing the ballroom this morning and the first guests should arrive at eight," The woman answered in a chipper tone, doing a complete one eighty from her previous state of anxiety. "Oh," she also said, as if remembering something, "You've got five voicemails, none of them seem critical, however."

"Understood, leave me while I prepare. I'll meet with you in about an hour or so," he said, absentmindedly accepting her adieus while entranced with the new, strange manner of speech that seemed to have overtaken him.

He decided to start by cleaning himself up, hopping in and out of the shower as quickly as he could and brushing down his hair and mustache shortly before donning the neatly folded suit that lay on his bed-side desk. Following this, he took a rest and sat down, staring at the intimidating selection of colognes that lined one of his drawers as he thought over the situation. He looked down through the paper-thin scroll he spun around in between his palms. In any other scenario, he knew he would have been overjoyed to study such a technical marvel. But he couldn't be bothered to do much more than coldly analyze the touch screen and look over the basic functionalities of the...phone...computer...device of sorts, the feeling of general anxiety that overtook him with the knowledge that he was in another person's body was pervasive and wearing. From what he'd gathered, he was in the body of a "Mister Schnee" in future…well, Montana or Alaska going by the accents and the arctic conditions outside his bedroom window. He worked in a company and might be rich. Actually, he was probably loaded considering he had servants and was "hosting" parties.

Of course, the right thing to do would be to reveal himself before he inadvertently got this guy fired...buuuut there was nothing wrong with testing the waters before taking such drastic action. Who knows, maybe "body snatchers" like him were common in the future and immediately put to death once discovered. The fact that today was "party day" gave him more reason to keep up the act because he had, as of right now, at least one day where he could relax and learn more about this future. This gave him a chance to act on his own terms, at least to some extent, in any case. As a bonus, he didn't have to worry about messing up anything important. Sure, these fancy parties or galas or whatever had a lot of rules and procedure, but he was sure his servants would take care of that. Besides, a gaff at a party makes the Saturday news if it's big enough; a mistake on the job could cost lives and livelihoods... He shuddered at the thought, a lingering sense of dread developing in his gut as old news reports of exploding chemical plants ran through his memory. Seriously, unless this guy's job had something to do with Chemical or Aerospace engineering, he was gonna get fired on day one.

He absentmindedly grabbed a purple cologne in a clear glass, applying the concoction before placing it back into the drawer and heading to the west wall of the room. The "west wall", as he called it, was actually a large bookcase, packed to the brim with a blue wall of velvet-bound books. He whistled in appreciation as he craned his head to see the top shelf of the collection, noticing a switch at the side which would presumably conveyor-belt the books to his level. The book he was looking for, however, was within arms reach, worn with the touch of many readings.

He frowned as he pulled the book out and looked at the full title.

"History…" It read, "...of Remnant."

He opened to the first page of the book.

"Man, born from dust, yadda, yadda, yadda, darkness, blah, blah, blah, Creatures of Grimm?" He frowned at the book, flipping to a random page decorated with an anatomically accurate drawing of a, "Nevermore, how original," he rolled his eyes at the name, looking at the massive raven which graced the page alongside a scale drawing of a human.

He placed the book back into its place. He was here to read about the history of the world not to learn about the long winded backstory to a long winded fantasy novel.

He skimmed through the titles on the bookshelf, reading...

"Technology...of Remnant," He mumbled, placed the book back into its place with a bit more force.

"Countries...of Remnant" He was starting to get mad.

"An analysis of Dust Vein decomposition patterns...In FUCKING REMNANT!"

Seriously, he thought it was annoying in his time when every franchise jus HAD to release twelve "world building" books of bullshit. The trend only seems to have gotten worse since then, however. No matter, he would just find an actual history book, even if he had to go to the library instead of scrounging through someone's fantasy book collection. It was just as the thought of looking things up on his new phone hit him that he heard three, echoing knocks from his door once more.

"Sir, the first guests are arriving," the woman politely reported from the other side of the door.

'Already?' he thought, turning to look at the morning sun shining through the window. 'Wait, did she mean Eight AM? How long is this party gonna last?' he pocketed his scroll as he headed towards the door.

He was approaching the door when a terrifying thought hit him. He didn't know the woman's name. If he was right about her being his secretary, than getting her name would be the key to getting everyone else's. But he'd have to call her _something_ in the meantime! '

What am going to I call her?' He thought, frantically cycling through the options.

'"Sweetie?"...No,' he shook his head 'too personal.'

'Or maybe "Hun?"...Nope.'

He closed in on the door with sweaty palms as he desperately searched for an appropriate nickname. Cringing in anticipation, he slowly opened the door before looking through and immediately thinking,

'Oh, thank the greatest good of goodnesses, she has a name tag!' He rejoiced.

The light blue tag hung over her right breast reading, "Schwarz."

'Schwarz, huh? Strange name, but it's the future or whatever.' he dismissed the peculiarity and lifted his gaze from the tag. A pale face stared back up at him with gleaming dark eyes and softly curving strands of coal-dark hair running down on either side.

"Good morning, Schwarz," he tested, hoping that there wasn't a secret handshake he'd just forgotten to do.

"And a Good Morning to you too, mister Schnee!" she replied with a chipper tone, rising up on her toes in a short hop at the greeting, her fur-trimmed skirt twirling heavily at her knees as she did so. The richly textured, black of the hem almost gleaming against the uniform darkness of the rest of her outfit, the rest dark fabric only being broken up by the sable, fur hem running along every edge of her velvet jacket and the white cloth that covered her chest, just underneath the light-yellow, short collar that rose up above the neck of her jacket. All of this tied together with a grey belt with and two white, rectangular attachments that hung down on either side of the belt like earrings, reaching down to her knees with their length.

His heart lightened at her expression, and at the confirmation that he'd apparently greeted her correctly. A wave of confidence filled him as he closed the door behind him and walked down the hall, Schwarz following behind with clicking heels.

'Yeah, I've got this. It's just a party. I'd have to be, like, an advanced level idiot to mess this up.' our new Mr. Schnee thought with a smirk.

"Oh, and, it seems there is another matter for you to attend to." Schwarz tentatively probed.

"Yes?" he replied.

"Your daughter, Weiss, has sent a message. She says she'd like to accept your invitation to appear at the Gala today after all, but on the condition that she be allowed to bring along guests," Schwarz said in an even and calming tone. "Mr. Schnee", for his part, didn't pay much mind to her hesitation, it sounded, to him, more like a formality from the sound of things if his own daughter had to "accept an invitation" to a party.

"Of course," he said, "invite her. How many guests is she bringing anyways?"

"Really?" Schwarz exclaimed, wide eyed. "I mean, of course, sir. She's bringing three guests, though you should know that one of them is coming as a date, a girl by the name of," she looked down at her tablet, "Blake Belladonna."

"You say that like I'd mind," he said absentmindedly, nodding at his surroundings. 'Yeah, I'm definitely lost.'

"It's not that sir. It's just that some _aspects_ of Ms. Belladonna's guest sheet seem to have been left blank," Schwarz said, clearly uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation.

"Look, Schwarz," he said, looking around at his surroundings and trying not to seem as lost as he was, "If she's human, than let her through," he chuckled at his own joke.

"That's just the thing, sir," Schwarz said with the gravest tone imaginable. "Her guest sheet," she paused, "It doesn't SAY whether she's a human."

He paused for a moment, processing the statement. Then his face brightened, "HAHAHAHA," he laughed immediately as the statement clicked. 'Holy crap, who knew Schwarz was so funny! She even had me going with that whole serious business persona!'

He interrupted Schwarz's uncomfortable chuckle as he wiped a tear from his eye. "Look,Schwarz, remind me to give you a raise sometime," he said, patting her shoulder and causing her eyes to glow once more as she looked up at him.

"Just invite them over and focus on the rest of your duties," he finished.

"Yes, sir," Schwarz replied, expertly hiding her worries. Mr. Schnee could take care of such things, after all. He'd been navigating the swirling politics of the Atlas corporate head for longer than she'd been alive. She was sure she was just being paranoid if he thought nothing untoward could happen.

'Yeah, things are going great,' he smiled, 'looks like nothing would come to foil his party day after all, considering how dedicated a crew I have.'

"By the way," he asked, looking back at Schwarz as she followed him.

"Yes, sir?" Schwarz answered.

"Where are we going?"

* * *

Weiss read and reread the message which pinged onto her scroll. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She'd only "accepted" the invitation as a joke. She'd never imagined he'd actually accept, considering he knew well enough how she thought of him.

Well, no matter. His loss was her gain.

Of course, she couldn't lie on the guest sheets, that would be a felony after her father and his friends in politics got through with her. But, she could omit that Blake was a Faunus, and when the time came at the Gala Dinner, she'd reveal the truth to a shocked audience.

'The daughter of "Mister Schnee", dating a Faunus.' Weiss smiled at the potential headlines as well as the look on his face when he found out at a party of all his colleagues.

It wouldn't ruin him by any means. She wasn't willing to damage the company so many good people relied upon for work and dust, even if was being led by a morally questionable head. It would simply mean he would have to disassociate from her completely, like she'd wished for all along. Furthermore, the press, heckling and rumors would ensure that this year was the most tiring, work filled experience of his entire life! But, most importantly of all. It would shatter that facade of a "happy family" he hid behind. That self aggrandizing lie of a healthy home he worked to ensure the world saw when they looked at the Schnees. All of this while never showing his own family a fraction of the attention and care he devoted to his own image!

She took a shuddering breath as she calmed herself. No need to ruin her day thinking of such things.

She forced a smile, that was supposed to make you even a little happier by itself, wasn't it? She continued to scheme as she called for Blake, saying "Get the girls, and put on your dress Bow on!...Yes, the one that comes off easily!"

This was going to be the worst party ever, and Weiss was going to love it!

* * *

"I'm honored, thank you," he smiled, adding some half thought out declaration to each new face that greeted him with a smile.

"Mr Schnee" greeted guest after guest after guest until his hand ached. There was literally a line of people waiting at the entrance to shake his hand, and he sighed as he saw the twenty or so more people left standing before him. The "guests", it turned out, were VIP's who'd be treated to a tour of his palace, and yes, it was a palace, until the party began as ,apparently, the party proper wouldn't actually start until eight o'clock at night. It was nine o'clock in the morning as he finished greeting the last of the guests, so he would have about eleven hours to himself before the start of the party proper.

Schwarz stood waiting when he entered back into the palace, the last of the guests being corralled together by a cheerful tour guide behind him.

"Long line?" she asked with a familiar smirk.

"Of course," he said, with a tired stance.

"Well, we've got to go oversee the processing systems floor next," she said looking down at her tablet as she swiped through some files and time tables.

"I thought you said I had an empty day?" he asked.

"Hahaha," Schwarz laughed a light laugh, "we both know an empty day for you means you only have to carry your regular mountain-load of work," she finished with a smile. "But don't worry," she continued, "I've actually made some adjustments to your regular schedule. If you don't have any special obligations, you could finish by seven o'clock if you get to your office by eight!" she said with a sincere smile as she presented a multicolored time chart like it was a school painting she was especially proud of.

"Mr Schnee" internally screamed as he pondered the idea of eleven hour work days.

"Of course," he swallowed, "but put a pin on that time table for now and walk me to the floor. I'd like to talk with you."

"What about, sir?" Schwarz looked up at him.

"Huhhh," he breathed a deep and dramatic sigh he'd been planning for hours. "Tell me, Schwarz," he continued with a heavy tone, "What did I hire you to do?"

"Uhm, to schedule your affairs, filter your communications and head your security, sir," she replied mechanically, as if reading from a list.

'Wow, she does all that?' He thought.

"And how long have you been working in this position," he asked as if they both already knew the answer.

"Two years, six months, sir" she replied in that same tone.

"Yes, of course," he drifted off with a thoughtful tone, having run out of questions to ask.

"Is… is there any particular reason you wanted to talk about this?" Schwarz asked, failing to hide the deep worry that colored her voice.

"Oh, it's nothing to worry about," he assured. "I've just been thinking about something," he lied cryptically. "Would you mind sending me a file with the essentials of my work. I want to look over my things. Include the family history too, actually. With pictures."

"Uh, yes sir," Schwarz didn't ask any of the myriad questions which came to mind.

The rest of the time passed quickly for "Mister Schnee", consisting mostly of an adrenaline flooded series of decisions about company essentials, everything from what regions new sites should be placed at to which markets they should target most heavily in the next quarter. It was during this time of the day, when he sat at the head of a table surrounded by an assortment of fancy suits, that it fully sunk in just how big of a deal he was now, as well as how big of a deal his mistakes would become. He sighed at the momentous realization as he finished the work day off just before he was due to arrive at the party. Still, today's decisions were mostly multiple choice and any mistakes were, probably, easily fixable. He would just attend this party, have Schwarz clear his week, cram about history all night and make a decision by next Monday: even if that decision won him a nice, new straight Jacket.

* * *

"Weiss would have to sit to his right, definitely," she muttered. "But then, I'd have to move the Messerschmitts eldest down to sit by…ugh, no, she just got married to..."

Schwarz almost frowned as she wracked her brain, looking at the seating chart layed out in front of her while occasionally glancing towards the mess of papers scattered to the side. The papers showed tabled information on all the guests, along with lines of relationships literally drawn between the names. She wouldn't dream of getting mad at Mr. Schnee, but it was hard not to feel frustrated after his last minute change to the guest list. Beyond the fact that his daughter was unpredictable at times and that her guests were unknowns, Schwarz would only have several hours to rearrange the seating chart!

Schwarz bit into her sandwich as she played with the names projected on her tablet, sliding them around the scale model of the main dining table. There were many tables at this party, but this table was key. This table would hold the most influential and powerful families in Atlas, who could, and often would, forge the greatest dynasties at simple "parties" such as this one.

And these families, like many other powerful families with long histories, were quite thin skinned.

A single misplaced seat, putting together marrying age children of the wrong couple, unbalancing the hierarchy of seating orders, putting this person or that too far from the edge without proper reason… would bring fire and fury upon the "lowly secretary" who was playing like a god with the place and movement of these old and powerful names; and, in that pattern of movement, all of them orbited the name of Mister Schnee, the most rich and the most powerful among the rich and powerful of Remnant.

Schwarz sighed as she rushed to complete the seating chart before her lunch break was up. Mister schnee had entrusted her to complete this, and she wouldn't disappoint!

* * *

He stared up in amazement at the seemingly endless height of the room, his spirits lifting with the expanding space as he left behind a tense workday and stepped into the comforting warmth of the ball room. The arched ceiling seeming to hang weightlessly over the room despite its size, supporting a gargantuan chandelier in is center that radiated a warm, yellow-white light that seemed to color the atmosphere as it glittered against the tiling. He knew he was rich, but he'd never appreciated that fact until he stepped into this twelve story tall art piece, with intricate stonework etched away in every corner and richly colored tapestries draping the walls and support structures.

The architectural inspiration, along with many other curiosities of the future, worked to convince him that Germany got at least a partial victory out of World War III.

A gloriously blue banner hung down from the ceiling, reaching from one end of the room to the other as bold letters spelled out "SCHNEE" across the banner.

He tried not to seem too amazed at the technological wonders which surrounded him, though it was hard not to get excited at seeing an actual, real life, robot.

He soon focused his attention back onto the rest of the party and moved away from the massive doorway that enframed him. Stepping down the wide, marble staircase, he soon arrived down at the main floor, mingling into the crowd as he released Schwarz to enjoy the party, practically having to force her away from her duties of following him around and working. He noticed she never seemed to stray too far away from him, though, casually talking to other party goers as she discreetly glanced at him once and again, as if asking "are you SURE you don't need anything?". It was the best he could hope for, he guessed, shrugging.

"Hello there, Jacquez," a confident voice came from his side, interrupting his reverie and revealing a beautiful woman with flowing blonde hair and the reddest lipstick he'd ever seen.

"Hello," he greeted calmly, "who are you, again?" he asked in a casual fashion, too late to stop himself from saying something revealing.

"Oh, straight to the insults, Jacquez?" she sneered in that still calm tone as she glared up and down at him. "Usually, we wait until after the backhanded compliments for those."

He wasn't sure who she was or who exactly she thought she was, but the way she said "Jacquez", with an annoying stressing of the syllables, irked him greatly.

"Is there any reason I should know you?" he responded, less concerned with insulting her now than he had been prior.

"I feel like your time at the top has softened you if you can't remember even my little old name," she said with poison on her tongue.

"You weren't on the VIP list, you see. I don't recognize shaking your hand this morning," he said, trying to maintain civility even as her mannerisms drove him further and further from that goal.

She paused with a cold silence, looking at him with a dangerous glare as if he'd just kicked her dead mother.

"Huhhh," she took a calming breath, her wine glass shaking as if she were working to keep the liquid from splashing onto his face.

'I...probably shouldn't have said that,' he thought just before she spoke again.

"Perhaps I was wrong about your softness," she said, chuckling. "It seems you've gone _fully senile_ if you think you can get away with comparing me to those heel-licking, title purchasing, wannabe robber barons that you hand out those little vip stickers of yours to."

"Uh-"

"Know this, Schnee," she barreled on. "You can hide if from your pet secretary over there," she looked over his shoulder to Schwarz, "and you can even hide it from the press and your friends on the up, but don't think for a second you've managed to hide it from me. I, and many of the people here, know you're crumbling, and I'll be the first do dance on the ashes of whatever burnt out relic of a legacy you manage to leave behind" she finished, smiling meanly. She whirled about dramatically, her red dress swirling, and walked away with clicking heels as soon as she finished her tirade.

With the slight exception of a weird coffee addict in a green suit, rest of the party went relatively normally; he spent most of it going about between various groups, asking how the party was going, exchanging pleasantries, and moving on to other guests to ask after them. He got similar reactions of delight and surprise whenever he dropped in, except for when visiting one person, a person who left enough of an impression on him that he'd remember his name after the night was over...Jon Braun.

Jon initially caught our new Mister Schnee's attention, who we will call "Mr. S" from now on, by the extreme shock he showed at his presence. Mr. S was used to the surprise he got from people at this point, but this was no ordinary surprise. This was an eyes wide open, "can I believe my eyes?" kind of experience. Of course, they soon hit it off...

...

"So you work on rockets for the military?" Mr. S asked.

"Yes," Jon answered. "Well, I used to anyway. The team's being disbanded, I'm getting moved over to engine design." Jon replied with a regretful tone.

"They're disbanding the entire rocket team?" Mr. S was incredulous. He'd worked on rockets in the past and unless something incredible happened, he wasn't imagining their obsolescence. "Surely the military isn't so short sighted. They'd at least want to keep the experts for missile design, wouldn't they?" Mr. S asked.

"Oh, of course," Jon replied, "I'm apologize for having mislead you," he quickly amended, "you see, I was actually talking about...well...rockets to get into space," he cringed internally as he waited for the raucous laughter he'd gotten used to hearing after that statement.

"Well, of course," Mr S. replied. "It's long past due for serious investment in the exploitation of space."

"R-really?" If it were possible, Jon looked even more surprised than previously, as if he'd just seen a unicorn and that unicorn was also richest-man-on-remnant Mr. Schnee.

"Yes, what exactly were you working on?" Mr. S leaned in with intense interest as he'd been dying to hear how rocket technology evolved into the future.

"Well, I can't really go into the details of it, just the stuff the public already knows about," Jon said apologetically, though still with that look of incredulous surprise that bordered on fear.

"Tell me anyways," Mr. S insisted.

"Well, we were trying to develop rocket systems," he said. Adding after a short pause, "trying to bypass the dust barrier."

Of course, having worked as Mr. Schnee himself for one day, he'd doubtless been exposed to "dust." Nobody went over the basics of it with him, but apparently it had a crazy-high energy density and came in different varieties which were named after the elements for some reason, probably a marketing gimmick.

"Any troubles with the engines?"

"Oh, no, the engines were basically modified Atlas thrusters, we didn't have any trouble with the design..." Jon replied, putting emphasis on "design."

Mr. S was surprised to see the Atlas family of rockets still holding out this far into the future, but he was curious nonetheless.

"What problems did you experience, then?" Mr. S asked.

"Well, I don't have to tell this to you of all people, of course, but dust doesn't work in the upper atmospheres. We weren't able to get around that." Jon said simply.

"You couldn't get enough speed in the lower atmospheres? What inclinations did you try?"

"Unrealistic inclinations," Jon replied dryly, his eyes opening in surprise, now fully wondering if this man actually was Mr. Schnee. Was he on one of those hidden camera shows? Was this some hazing ritual they pulled on the new guys? Was he dreaming?

"Did you try carrying your own air as propellant?" Mr. S asked, feeling silly as soon as he'd asked.

"We tried. We think it might be the altitude itself which affects the dust rather than the air density," he whispered intensely as he spoke excitedly to Mr Schnee. He'd never thought being chosen to represent the Atlas Military at a ball would lead to such engrossing conversations. Even the hint that Mr. Schnee had heard of rockets would have been enough to tickle that hopeful part of him. but this...

Mr. Schnee was about to ask why they didn't just use a chemical rocket for the second stage when Jon asked, "I don't mean to be rude, but you seem very knowledgeable about the subject."

"I've been researching-" Mr. S replied just as a heavy bell rung through the ball room, quieting the guests and signaling the start of the dinner.

"I am extremely sorry," Schwarz said with intense worry as she took Mr. S and lead him to his seat at the other end of the dining hall, staying stone silent as she led him the rest of the way.

'Stupid, Stupid, Stupid' she chastised herself in her thoughts. 'Of course he only allowed Weiss and her friends to attend so that the Messerschmitts would be moved down four seats. This would move the Frau's down as well due to the recent marriage to their rivals, and that would've opened a seat for the Atlas military advisory to sit next to Mr. Schnee without there being a scene! It was all so obvious!'

Schwarz resisted the urge to facepalm in polite company.

'Thanks to my slowness, Mr. Schnee had to spend half the night talking to some no-name military advisor when he should have been talking to the heads! And His daughter is still here! No wonder he didn't want me around!" she gripped onto her napkin nervously as they approached the head of the dining table.

'Ok, calm yourself Schwarz.' Schwarz took a deep breath 'He still managed to spare some time for everyone, even if he was a bit curt. He'll handle the rest at dinner and you can apologize later.' Finally, she escorted Mr. Schnee to the head of the table, with his daughter and her friends lined up on his right and another family sitting to his left.

She passed by Weiss and company on her way down the table to her own seat. She noted the bright, though relatively respectable clothing they wore. 'At least she bothered not to make a scene out of them,' she thought, knowing exactly how hunters and huntresses in training could get at parties. 'Perhaps this party could end simply," she thought, her heart pounding more than it usually did during these events.

…..

"Ladies and gentlemen," his voice boomed across the silent ballroom as he stood at his seat, "it is with the greatest honor that I host this party during such a significant date in our.."

Mr S. started reading off the teleprompter and giving a small toast about a new business opening or something; he wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying. No, he was more focused on the camera's dotting the room. Not security cameras, mind you. Full blown, HD news cameras. Some of them clung to the walls and columns, hidden from the casual gaze as if they were a part of the architecture. Others were attached to drones, circling high above like vultures and almost touching the ceiling in their lazy flight.

'Oh, so this is one of _those_ parties,' he noted, taking a breath. Nothing to be worried about, he'd finish the toast and they'd probably edit the rest of the night out considering it would consist of people eating and chattering to each other for an hour, he assured himself.

Mr. S sat down to light applause after finishing his speech and dug in. The party had quite a nice spread, he noted, sinking his teeth into some steak soup with a fancy, some might call pretentious, side of Risotto. He kept a sly eye on his table companions, making sure he mimicked their actions and didn't use the wrong fork or something. Thankfully, the people at this table just dug in; it seemed the complicated myriad of rules he expected didn't apply during dinner. Seriously, some guy in the corner was practically inhaling alcohol.

"Weiss," he said, turning to his daughter. Well, "daughter." At the same time, she turned back to look at him with a decidedly neutral expression.

"Yes, father?" she replied.

"How have you enjoyed the ball?" He continued evenly, deciding to overlook the fact that she spoke like she was raised in the forties.

"It was an adequate gathering," she replied, looking straight ahead and making it clear that she didn't want to talk.

Mr. S Shrugged, he'd figure out what teenage drama or petty squabble was causing this later.

"Well, how are your friends enjoying the party?" he looked to the three girls sitting beside her, who together formed a spectrum of emotion which he swore had to be planned.

"It was good. I mean, great! Mr. Schnee." a soft spoken and nervously chuckling girl said, adding a quick, "sir," after a short pause. He smiled at the girl as she tried turning her grey eyes away from his. The grey eyed girl was sitting furthest from Weiss, and next to her sat a busty blonde in a yellow dress who didn't bother hiding the glare she directed at him. Moving on quickly, he looked at the next person in line, who he guessed this was "Blake" considering her black dress and that she sat directly next to Weiss.

Blake's look was some combination of "Ahh!" and "I will rip your heart out and eat it!", all of this mixed with resting bitch face. Now, he wasn't one to meddle in a strangers dating life, but he wondered if Weiss had chosen the best people to call friends.

"And why are you asking?" Weiss said forcefully.

"I just wanted to know how your friends were doing?" he replied with probably the most honest thing he'd said since he woke up this morning.

Alas, Weiss, despite all her riches, was not buying it.

"Really? You want to know more about my friends, now?"

Weiss's voice echoed across the ballroom. Mr. S noticed the sudden quiet and turned to see the nervously smiling faces of the guests as most everyone seemed to be occupied with sipping their empty cups while discreetly staring at the scene. Weiss herself noticed the now silent room, the buzzing drone of the cameras now audible as she worked up the courage to take the next step.

"Well fine," she said standing up. "I'll tell you about them!"

"Ruby!" she pointed at the grey eyed girl with black hair, "is the most talented huntress I've ever met, without whose leadership Beacon would surely have fallen." Weiss proclaimed with a not-too-subtle jab at the Atlas nobility's unpopular decision to hold back dust sales to a besieged Beacon when the white fang attacked. They reversed this decision of course, but it was still a sore point for many heads at the table.

"Ruby," as he now knew her to be called, waved at him with a nervous smile as Weiss lauded her achievements.

Mr. S wanted to give Ruby his congratulations on helping to win their D&D campaign, but Weiss was not done.

"Yang!" she pointed now to the scowling blonde.

'Oh, she's doing all of them,' Mr. S thought, as he looked at the scene with a neutral expression.

"Who is the most KIND HEARTED and BRAVE person I know!" Weiss said, putting particular emphasis on "KIND HEARTED" and "BRAVE" as another kick in the gut to the Atlas nobles who wanted to stay out of the fight for beacon. The same atlas Nobles who nearly let the white fang destroy one of the CCT towers.

Many guests in the ballroom were heavily gulping down wine from their flasks, Schwarz was considering downing a bottle.

'The yellow haired one looks like she'd main an orc,' Mr. S, thought. Now understanding why Weiss had to be invited to this party. 'No matter, she can't make anymore of a scene,' Mr. S thought, wondering what kind words Weiss would have for Blake.

"And Blake!," Weiss's voice rang out like a crystal through the now stone silent Ball room. Her eyes glancing lovingly down towards Blake for a split second before she braced herself and let Blake grip her hand.

"My girlfriend!" she announced, helping Blake up from her chair with a tug of her arm, removing her bow with a flick of the wrist and bending Blake backwards as she kissed her deeply in front of the watching crowd.

Yang smiled deliciously, barely managing to keep her promise not to make any more of a scene.

Ruby clapped lightly in the corner with a nervous smirk, "yay! they're girlfriends!" she whispered.

If possible, the silence in the room got colder, followed by a loud, unanimous, gasp which spread out in a wave before falling silent; the acts of yelling, crying ladies, and loud phone calls only held back by the common courtesy everyone showed in allowing Mr. Schnee to be the first among them to do those things.

All eyes were on him, as some brows sweated and some, like the lady in red, smiled with a devilish smirk at the shitshow that would surely follow.

Now, if you, dear reader, expected Mr. S to be so completely ignorant of Faunus kind that he would make the wrong move at this turn, you'd be wrong. No, for Mr. S had learned about Faunus just prior to his party.

Well...he hadn't LEARNED about them...or read anything about them...or even heard the word "faunus" before in his life...Ok, he'd seen a picture of some people with animal ears on the cover of a magazine in one of the waiting rooms: A crime-watch magazine. But! He had managed to deduce much from a simple picture.

For example, it was obvious that gene therapy had advanced to the point where people could selectively add animal characteristics to their biology.

From this, he gathered three more pieces of information.

First. Obviously, only rich people would have access to this technology at first, a hypothesis somewhat confirmed by his daughter dating someone with said augmentations. So make sure to treat people with animal characteristics accordingly.

Second. People in specialized industries would probably get them if their work could be improved by it, which is why those prison guards on the magazine cover had extra ears, to help keep a lookout.

And third, and most importantly. Don't freak out if you see people with animal ears, you'll make a fool of yourself.

So of course, Mr. S was now extremely glad that he'd seen that magazine. Otherwise, he might have freaked out at the sight of Blake's ears and made a fool of himself. PHEW! Of course, it was apparently a big deal that his daughter had made a scene and kissed someone, so he'd better say something to ease the tension. All of this flashed through his adrenaline addled mind in a quick second.

Looking smoothly over to the anticipating rows of diners in front, and his daughter and her friends to the side, he cleared his throat.

"You know, Weiss," he said. "I didn't know much about Blake when you'd first introduced her, but I can see now why you chose to date her."

Weiss rolled her eyes, 'Of course he's going to mention he didn't "know about" Blake. Trying to distance himself from this "Travesty"' she thought hotly.

Weiss didn't bother to hide her disgust at the coming speech about her "rebelliousness," the "bad influences at Beacon" and her "traumatized little soul after surviving through the attack by the White Fang."

Despite all of this, however. Weiss responded.

"And why do you think I chose to date her, father?" Weiss said, with a tone as sweet as ever.

"Why, because she's obviously an excellent listener!" he said loudly, making sure everyone in the room heard the clever joke he'd just come up with.

'Yeah, I'm awesome,' he thought as he chuckled at his own joke.

'It works on so many levels,' he thought to himself, glad that he was able to come up with something under pressure like that as he stuffed down a hearty spoonful of the, quite delicious, Risotto, still chuckling. Yeah, he deserved this. Slowly, he got less and less glad as his own chuckles echoed back towards him.

No one else was laughing. Like, not even a little. Not even those fake laughs people give when rich people tell bad jokes, or even those half hearted pity-laughs people give when poor people tell bad jokes! He looked over from Weiss to the horrified faces that stood out on every person he saw, except for the red-lipstick lady, who's smile stood out like Christmas was coming early.

'Yeahhh, I've fucked up," he thought, looking back towards Weiss, who looked like her eyes were going to fall out of her head as her expression switched between wrathful, shocked and exasperation.

Thankfully, he didn't have to think of anything else to say. The rest of the ball did that for him.

"What the fuc-" a man near the middle of the table yelled, standing up. The rest of that sentence wasn't heard, drowned out in the wave of shouts that arose from every table and corner of the room.

While the panic spread, the cameras still circled slowly above, capturing the scene in all its HD glory.

To be continued...

* * *

 **NTTN**


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.  
**

 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

"Sir," Schwarz whispered, lightly placing her hand atop Mr. S's arm, "we should go," she said, hooking her arm through his and pulling him away from his seat as raucous chattering filled the ball room. Excited onlookers cried out in the frenzied excitement of the moment as a sort of spontaneous dialogue seemed to have formed in every corner of the room as every guest strongly agreed that this was not good, each person tripping over themselves to denounce the situation more sternly than the last. Some of the ladies lightly dabbed at the mascara ridden tears that streamed down their cheeks as many of the people stood precariously on their chairs to videotape the scene with their scroll cameras.

Interestingly, nobody bothered to directly address, or even interact with, Mr. Schnee during all of this, allowing Schwarz a relatively quiet moment to guide him to the nearest exit: a secret door, hidden behind one of the tapestries that hung against the North Wall. Weiss, having recovered before the rest of team RWBY and quickly locating the pair, managed to yell out an impassioned, "Wait!" just as the heavy marble door shut neatly behind the retreating pair, resting flush against the wall once more as the tapestry swung smoothly back to cover it.

* * *

Schwarz's dress heels clicked sharply across the marble floor, resonating within the small tunnel they traveled through as Mr. S wondered if he should say something to break the silence before quickly deciding against it. He shivered with aftershocks at the memory of what was literally his first informal conversation of the night as, eventually, they came upon a small, circular room with four mechanical doors lining the walls; a fifth door shutting cleanly behind them as they entered the circle. And, for just a moment, as they both stood in the quiet and otherwise empty room, well...honestly, he thought she was here to kill him. His blood pressure spiked as Schwarz turned suddenly.

"Where should we go, sir?" she asked with a straight voice while staring intensely down at the scale-model hologram of a building that floated above her tablet. A fiery red web of secret pathways snaked their way throughout the projected building's interior while a blue, flashing light indicated their position in those very tunnels.

"Take me to my office," he replied monotonously, managing to force a semblance of alertness and strength in his voice. And, at his word, the rightmost door whirred with a mechanical hum as the metal moved to reveal another small tunnel.

They once again headed into the maze of pathways, occasionally coming across forks in the path and winding around strongly curved and inclining walkways. During all of this, Mr. S felt keenly the unsaid questions hanging uncomfortably in the air as Schwarz worked her hardest to pretend the answers to those questions didn't matter: questions that Mr. S couldn't identify.

'Alright, this is too much,' Mr. S decided, eagerly pulling his scroll from his pocket and searching for "History of The World." It wasn't much to go on, but it was all he could think to search for at the moment. His eyes desperately scanned over the first link, reading in a flurry...

 _ **Remnant is a rocky planet with one natural satellite. Home to two races, Humanity and the Faunus, the history of Remnant is...**_

'Motherfucker!' he worked to keep himself from yelling as he scrolled down, only to see more links for this "Remnant" world building crap. 'Seriously, how much was this guy into this fantasy book if it affected his recommendations this much!'

Frantically, he started typing away for a more specific query when a news story popped up, partially blocking the screen.

 _ **Former Schnee heiress makes surprise speech at ball!**_ the headline read, continuing on to say, **"You won't believe what happened next!"**

A grainy picture of the dining table he'd just been sitting at appeared below the title, showing standing at her seat and looking down at Mr. S while multiple red arrows decorated the photo, pointing to a spot on Ms. Messerschmitt's cleavage, which itself was highlighted by a red circle. He scowled at the image, clicking it away as he worked to type in a new search once more.

"Sir, we're here," Schwarz interrupted.

Mr. S looked up to see Schwarz standing patiently by a heavy, metal door. He followed her light glance towards the small fixture embedded into the wall beside the door.

'Oh, she wants me to unlock it,' Mr. S realized as he strode confidently towards the fixture.

'Ok,' he thought on his way to the door, 'If "PASSWORD" doesn't unlock the door I'm going to pretend to pass out until I can figure out what-OH THANK GOODNESS IT'S A FINGERPRINT SCANNER!'

Mr. S exhaled in relief as he approached the door. A loud and deep CLICK resounded from inside the metal door almost immediately after he pressed his thumb onto the thumb pad. The door clicked a second time, more softly this time, before parting in the middle into two parts, each half swinging smoothly inwards to reveal his office.

If he'd been in the mood, he would have quickly run in and jumped into the swivel chair before spinning about to take in the aesthetic beauty of the room while softly saying "whoaaaa…" with each revolution. The floor of the room was covered completely in custom fitting, snow white, tiles that lined the room from wall to wall. The walls themselves were amazingly designed. The front wall was a solid block of metal, the same type as the doors'. The two side walls were covered in a lightly toned, hard carpet of some sort that brought a lot of balance to the stark contrast created by the white floor and dark, mahogany desk which sat near the back edge of the room. And finally, behind the desk itself, there was the main attraction: a wall made entirely of glass. He experienced a bit of vertigo as he looked through that wall and saw the skeleton crew working, their colored uniforms contrasting nicely with the white factory floor below. On the opposite wall of the warehouse was what could have been the largest television he'd ever seen. The screen itself was larger than his entire office, and on it was displayed the stock information for Schnee Corp, or rather, SCHN. A bright, green line ran along the surface of the screen, fluctuating up and down on a black graph as other companies and numbers flashed onto the lower bar of the screen, feeding real time stock price information straight through the glass wall. The green glow of the graph was just powerful enough to stretch into his office, coloring the snow white tiles a decorative teal.

He wasn't paying attention to any of this as he walked in, however. He was intrigued more by the crowd of people who mulled about on the inside, apparently ready to greet him. Schwarz followed hesitantly behind him as she looked more obviously at the two groups which stood on either side of the room, forming a path for Mr. S to reach his desk as they all stared at him with expressions ranging from curiosity to incredulity to rage.

He looked straight ahead as he walked forward, keeping his eyes on the desk as indistinct features passed by on either side of his periphery. Each step he took seemed to echo in the crowded room, his every movement risking a casual brush against either of the two lines they had formed against the carpeted walls. He released a soft breath he'd been hiding as he curved around to stand in the clear space behind his desk. Reaching forward, he pulled back the chair behind his desk and lowered himself into it, trying his hardest to look regal as he did so.

As he sat in his chair, his desk surprised him by humming on and powering up all the electronics and computers that sat upon the mahogany.

"Good. Morning. Mr. Schnee," a staccato, computerized voice sounded from the telephone which sat on the nearest corner of the desk. "You. Have. Nine...Thousand. Four. Hundred. And. One. Messages," the computer finished just before a loud, cacophonous ringing overtook the machine.

The ringing stopped after several seconds. "You. Have. Nine. Thousand. Five. Hundre-"

CLICK. The sound resounded throughout the room as Schwarz's hand pressed harshly into the largest button on the machine, though Mr. S noted that a small light still flashed on the grey surface of the device, indicating that the stream of calls continued. He looked up, seeing the contained grimace Schwarz directed at the machine, before focusing his attention to the people in front of him. Careful not to ask suspicious questions like, "who are you people?" he elected to take a more subtle route. The first thing would be to find out whether "he" was supposed to know these people. His only guess was that he knew at least some of them quite well, and must be quite friendly with at least one of them if they had the key to his office, so a more casual approach might be appropriate for the situation, he gathered. He felt a cold shill fall over him as he thought of what to say, unable to come up with any excuses or apologies about whatever it was he did.

"Professor Ozpin, what are you doing here?" Schwarz asked with a mixture of relief and worry as she directed a familiar smile towards the man with the cane. Mr. S thanked his lucky stars at this and elected to stay silent for as long as he could manage.

"I was just dropping by to say hello," the man he now knew to be Ozpin replied with a genial smile, breaking the silence as he took a sip of, he guessed coffee, from a mug he'd been holding up ever since Mr. S walked in. "We didn't get to talk much during the party," Ozpin continued, directing the statement at Mr. S.

"I don't think you're the only one who wants a talk with our dear Mr. Schnee," a slightly tipsy man with raven hair chuckled. The man gestured with his flask hand to a television embedded into one of the side walls.

"Why, because she's obviously an excellent listener!" the statement blared from the tv's speakers as an aerial shot of the ball showed Mr. S, a small figure in a white tuxedo sitting at the far edge of the largest table. Despite his small presence on the screen, however, his words tore through the surrounding silence of the ball room and seemed to pass through the tv and into his office to haunt him once more.

"Now, as you can see quite clearly, his voice is clear and unstrained, and there is no hint of discomfiture from Mr. Schnee as he speaks, nor is there any indication that he meant to be deceptive. In fact, if you will pay attention to his chuckle there at the end, I can see no intent to follow up his joke with anything substantive," a man wearing a brown suit explained while the news station replayed the statement, along with the following chuckle, in slow motion on the left half of the television screen.

"So would you say that Mr. Schnee seemed tolerable of, even friendly with, the faunus that kissed his daughter?" the reporter sitting next to the man asked as she hooked her hands together and leaned forward on her stool.

"Yes, uh, I would characterize his behavior as friendly," the man answered with a curt nod.

"Well thank you, doctor Braun," the reporter said with a respectful nod before turning back to face the camera with a serious expression. "We will now talk LIVE with our body language analyst on the scene who-"

A light blue, circular light appeared on the lower corner of the tv as the sound muted. Turning his head, Mr. S looked up to see Schwarz standing beside him with her arm outstretched towards the screen, a remote grasped firmly in her hand. Mr. S wondered if he ought to give her a raise sometime.

"Now why'd you have to," the raven haired man took a long swig, "go on and do that. We were just getting to the fun part," he finished with a devilish smirk.

"Actually," a cold voice interrupted Schwarz's heated reply. Weiss stepped forward from the line she and her friends formed against the left wall, "I actually...agree with Qrow," she said as if swallowing something distasteful. "You have a lot of questions to answer," Weiss continued, her voice losing its initially wavering nature to take on a braver tone.

As she said this, the rest of the group trained their gazes on Mr. S, who sat still in his chair, thinking over the situation.

So he was sitting in a room with seven people. His daughter and her friends, along with Ozpin, were the people he "knew" apparently. That left two people unaccounted for.

Standing next to Ozpin, against the right wall, wearing a white and purple dress, was a displeased librarian with a riding crop. No. Really. She just carried that thing around and no one batted an eye, not even when she was wandering around the party...Moving on, Mr. S. decided to ignore her attire as he went to analyze the other unknown. Next to her, leaning on the wall in a roguish manner, was a man who apparently just did not give a fuck about dress code. He was wearing a cape for god's sake! And even while wearing that outfit he managed to make it look like he was too drunk to dress himself. Now, Mr. S wasn't usually one to pay too much attention to appearances in the first place, but the man seemed to have a talent for annoying people. His look, his hair, they way he talked, and his nonchalant attitude in the face of this disaster…whatever it was.

Man, he thought he was just soooo cool. Well he wasn't.

Mr. S exhaled lightly as he looked at his "daughter", who now stood defiantly in front of his desk.

"Now what could I possibly have to answer for?" he asked with an ironical smirk that implied he knew what the hell was going on.

"Buh, ghhh," Weiss floundered at Mr. S's playing dumb act. "Everything!" she finally settled at with a breathless, exasperated shout, "you have everything to answer for! What kind of act ar-"

"Excuse me," Schwarz interrupted strongly. "While Mr. Schnee appreciates your...excitement...to meet with him, you are still trespassing." she noted to a now surprised Mr. S. "Please leave and we'll be sure to schedule appointments for all of you," she finished in a tone that made clear that they wouldn't be getting any appointments. While she said this, her hand hovered dangerously over the visible emergency button.

"You're excused," Weiss responded, calmly fixing her dress, "and we're not leaving."

"Actually," Schwarz said in the closest thing to a sneer Mr.S had heard from her, "you wi-"

"Schwarz," Mr. S interrupted, drawing Schwarz's attention to him while he looked out to the group ahead, "why don't you get our guests some chairs."

"What?" Weiss asked indignantly.

"Of course, sir," Schwarz looked down at him, smiling while her hand hovered over the hidden emergency call button.

"No..I mean, actually get them some chairs," he clarified, drawing a confused look from Schwarz as she fought an internal battle between her trust in him and her duty

"What?" Schwarz summarized her feelings, immediately recoiling at the apparent impudence in her voice.

"Of course," Weiss chimed in, crossing her arms haughtily.

Schwarz turned her head to face Weiss with a glare, "I don't know what on Remnant-"

Mr, S didn't hear the rest of Schwarz's admonitions; for just as he heard the word "Remnant" leave her lips, he'd leaned back in his chair _just_ enough to see the REAL centerpiece of the room. Above his head, expertly painted onto the ceiling of his office, was a giant map of…

" **REMNANT** ".

Dark, bold letters spelled out the name of the world in stylized lettering, with each of the continents " **Atlas,** " " **Minstral,** " **Vacuo,** " and " **Vale** " being similarly labeled.

A series of epiphanies slammed into his mind as he gazed up at the world in a contemplative silence.

'They're basically just modified Atlas thrusters.' Jon's words rung clearly in his head.

'oh' Mr. S thought

'Remnant is a rocky planet with one natural satellite,' the words from the web entry flashed in his mind.

'Oh' he continued.

'...home to two races, Humanity and the Faunus…'

'OH' his mind began to burn with implications.

'...seemed friendly with the Faunus that kissed his daughter?'

'OH!'

'Because she's obviously such a great listener!' his own actions flashed painfully in his memory for no particular reason.

'D'OH!'

Quickly recovering, however, the final piece of the puzzle slid into place.

...Analysis of Dust Vein Decomposition Patterns In Fucking Remnant…

'OH SH-'

"Mr. Schnee," Schwarz interrupted his inner monologue, bringing his focus down from the ceiling. "Are you sure you'd like to speak with these people now?" Schwarz continued, putting emphasis on "now".

"Yes," he replied. No matter what was going on in the news, he NEEDED to find out what was going on. Now. Because he was far from being Montana or Alaska, and he definitely wasn't in Kansas.

"Ha!" Weiss said, snubbing her nose at Schwarz while the dark haired woman begrudgingly called for the chairs with raised hackles and a nervous posture.

"Just be-"

"While you're at it," Mr. S interrupted the dangerously toned statement that Schwarz directed towards Weiss, "would you mind going through my voicemails?"

Schwarz was a gem, and he appreciated her at the moment more than he'd appreciated anything in his life, but he could tell a frazzled person when he saw one. She was best off doing something other than talking to the people present.

"You want me to look through all the voicemails?" Schwarz asked incredulously.

"Of course not," Mr. S replied. "Just randomize the order and look through a few to get a feel for the environment."

"Randomising. Voicemails." The phone chimed, seemingly deciding Schwarz's next course of action.

Schwarz seemed to get the subtext of the statement and lowered her shoulders as she picked up the phone handle, pressed some buttons and pushed the phone to her ear as she read off of a transcript. Though, Mr. S noted, the task seemed to have a calming effect on the secretary, as a hint of a smile formed on her countenance at the first contact with the hard plastic of the phone.

Now, he needed to get some very key questions about this world answered...and he couldn't ask any of them. In fact, instead of asking questions, he would have to give detailed answers about the politics and behavior of Mr. Schnee while providing an adequate explanation for the apparent difference between his behavior and what Mr. Schnee's behavior would have been.

He was sure that was possible though…somehow.

Maybe if he answered in question form?

He wasn't a pessimist, but he was sure this would be the hardest game of Jeopardy ever.

Mr S. blinked as he looked over the expectant crowd. Everyone was silent, looks of confusion, anger and intense curiosity flooded the room as everyone trained an idle gaze on Mr. S. Even Qrow, looking unusually serious as he leaned back against a side wall, managed to show some reverence towards the situation, as if the mystery of the century was about to be solved in this very office. Mr. S looked back at them with a blank gaze, slowly regretting his rash decision to keep them here as they all waited for him to bust out a completely rational and sensical explanation for what was going on. Well, that wasn't happening. His mind was still burned out after accepting that the future reality was actually some alien world and he wasn't really in the best state to come up with anything convincing. Really, the only explanation he could think of was the truth, and it was just stupid.

Breathing in lightly, he prepared to grind out some half thought declaration when sweet respite came with Weiss as she cut through the awkward silence.

"Can we get on with this, father?" Weiss leaned forward to glare down at him.

The question buzzed past him as he barely acknowledged the meaning of the statement before it slipped from his mind. Really, he was thankful that someone else had taken the burden of starting the conversation, but Mr. S was still a bit distracted by the fact that this crazy body snatching adventure was actually on another fucking planet! As such, at the moment, he was more concerned with the Fermi paradox and the logistics of interstellar travel then he was with the conversation before him.

"Get on with what?" he managed to reply with a straight voice and gentle smile, concealing his lack of fucks expertly.

"You!" Weiss pointed a finger at Mr. S while she slowly intoned each word, "answering our questions!" Weiss finished as she felt her pointing finger shake with a growing rage at having asked the same, impossibly interesting, question of her father.

"Well, what questions could you possibly want answered?" Mr. S replied, trying to put on an interested smile that came off as more smug than intended. 'Yeah, this probably isn't Proxima, what with the whole tidal locking. Maybe Alpha Centauri?'

Weiss shivered with a contained wrath at his apparent nonchalance. "Well," she began with an overly calm attitude as she felt herself being undone. Her expressions and movements become looser and more exaggerated as an impassioned fury expressed itself through her. "You could start by explaining your behavior back at the ball, old man!" At this point, Weiss was a raging ball of hot fury, barely holding herself back from yelling as she let it all out. Everything. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted that she'd never gotten this far before, having always been shut down, or slapped or threatened before she'd reached this point, but she was free now. She'd already been disowned and had nothing else to lose, nothing else he could take from her. Best of all her father was stupid enough to let everyone stay, to let himself be cornered in public like this! Finally, after all these years, like a dream come true, she would be leaving this poisonous relationship, and she would be leaving with her head held high, her friends by her side, and most importantly...getting some answers!

So why was she so angry?

Weiss leaned intently forward as Mr. S moved to speak, hating that she was so captivated by his words and beginning to listen to that muted voice in the back of her head that told her to calm down as she felt Blake move to stand beside her, allowing her to relax just a bit.

"Well, whatever would I have to explain myself for?" Mr. S replied as if this conversation was the last thing on his mind.

"Why did you say that back at the ball!?" Weiss exploded once more, on the brink of shouting as Mr. S Idly thought about paying more attention and care to his responses before resolving to muscle through this, he was bound to mess up, best not to overthink it.

"Because it was funny," Mr. S replied simply with a forlorn smile.

"You. You. You. You." Weiss stuttered, rapidly blinking as she struggled to come up with more words that could express her fury.

"Well what was I supposed to say?" he replied defensively as he felt his mind begin to wake once more and notice the rest of the people in the room who watched, as Yang in particular looked ready for a fist fight and Ruby weakly hooked her arm through Yang's in a worried attempt to hold her back.

"You were supposed to say that you didn't approve of our relationship!" Weiss replied with the obvious answer, almost begging for the world to make sense again.

"Well, why wouldn't I approve of your relationship?" Mr. S asked.

"BECAUSE SHE'S A FAUNUS!" Weiss exploded, stretching her arms up as she stood on her tiptoes to point vigorously at Blake's cat-ears.

Blake blushed as she flattened her ears and looked bashfully at the floor. Blake wondered if she should be offended at her girlfriends words.

'No," Blake thought, 'she's not like that.'

Mr. S, meanwhile was taken aback, visibly reacting to Weiss's words for the first time in the conversation as his eyes widened a hair and he moved to lean back against his office chair. There was a noticeable lull in the conversation as everyone seemed intrigued by Mr. Schnee's reaction, hooked onto his lips as they all eagerly awaited his next words. Weiss had said it straight, there was nowhere for him to deflect the conversation to. Mr. S himself was shaken from his reverie as it all hit him like a train, bringing him fully back into the conversation, the here and now, as "Remnant" left his musings and yet another stream of epiphanies streamed into place. Despite this being the third time that night that he was having such an experience, the power of the moment was enough to overwhelm him once more, to wipe away his thoughts as a singular conclusion formed in his mind, and, like a deer staring into the headlights of truth, there was nothing he did other than look back with wide eyes and reflect what shone onto him.

Mr. S paused for just an instant to consider his words, the whole room going still as even Qrow moved from his relaxed position against the wall to look fully upon the unfolding scene.

"You know," Mr. S paused with a slightly shocked tone, "Weiss," he brought his hands together, touching them to his lips as he looked down at his desk top in concern, "that's kind of racist."

* * *

 **NTTN**


	3. Chapter 3

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.  
**

 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

In a completely unexpected turn of events, Weiss freaked out.

"Mother fu-!" Weiss's yell was cut short as a monochrome blur fell over her form, the rest of the room relaxing as Weiss was held back from making a popular mistake.

Meanwhile, the first verse of the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme song started playing in Mr. S's head.

Mr. S pressed back against his chair as Blake dragged away a struggling Weiss in a full nelson hold. Really, he didn't know what to be more surprised at, the reaction itself or that the heiress had the kung-fu moves to accompany it. Really, she had the foot work down and everything. The sudden and awkward silence that now weighed down on the room gave him some time to breath, though.

"Let go of me, Blake!" Weiss shouted for the third time as she struggled against the silent, though worried looking, faunus that held her.

Well, it was quiet if you ignored the violently angry heiress in the middle of the room, which everyone seemed to do in favor of giving Mr. S a dumbfounded look of...unbelief? Confusion? Drunkenness?

"Whasstha-" Qrow managed to slur out as he leaned against a near wall for support, looking suspiciously into his flask as he confirmed that last hypothesis.

As for the rest of the group, Mr. S was sure that this was the first time those facial expressions had been expressed anywhere, ever. Even Yang paused, ignoring the fact that Ruby was no longer holding her back as they both looked at the surreal scene unfolding before them.

"Wha-What do you mean 'That's racist'!?" Weiss said, managing to make the air quotes on either side of her scowling face despite her Blake-encumbered form.

"Well, it just seemed like denying your dating someone on the basis of their race-" Mr. S began to explain as if he'd just been caught without his homework.

"Will you just stop with this crazy talk!?" Weiss interrupted, exploding once more and feeling Blake tighten her arms around her as she gesticulated forward at Mr. S.

"Well, it might be hard to face your own shortcomings, but acknowledging that you have such a mindset is the first step to fixing it, Weiss." Mr. S said with a genuinely worried tone, partially at the views Weiss seemed to hold and partially at the hope that he said her name right.

"Wh-Wha-Whaahat?" Weiss chuckled out, a mad smile forming on her countenance as she leaned forward in the grip that still held her, slack as she felt all strength leave her at the declaration. "You're calling _me_ racist?" Weiss said, weakly pointing towards herself as she struggled not to laugh.

"I'm not trying to shame you with the label," Mr. S said with an understanding tone, forgetting that he was talking to what was supposed to be his daughter. "But acknowledging the fact is the best way for us to move forward," he finished, crossing his arms over his lap as he locked gazes with Weiss.

"What are you talking about?" Weiss said with a befuddled expression, feeling more and more like she was the one who had no idea what was going on. How was he able to say such things with such confidence!? " _I'm_ not the racist! _You're_ the racist!" Weiss said simply, as if she had to work to keep the facts from changing.

"Am I, though?" Mr. S said in a curiously skeptical fashion.

"Yes!" Weiss yelled back, managing to pull away from Blake's grip and stumble forward several steps as Schwarz once again pulled away from the voice mails to watch Weiss carefully. "What could possibly have caused you to think any differently!?" Weiss asked, "I'm the one dating her!" she continued, gesturing back to a nervous looking Blake. "You're the one who was supposed to freak out here!" She finished, pointing back at Mr. S, using simple and concrete language as if anything else would cause the reality around her to be even more nonsensical than it was.

"So...you're only dating her to get back at me?" Mr. S, asked with a disappointed look in his eyes.

"What? No!" Weiss said defensively, quickly switching back to an unbalanced anger as she tried to take back control of the conversation. "Don't flatter yourself," she continued, calmer as as straightened out her skirt and stepped back into an artificially stiff posture, "I'm dating her because I like her. I just revealed that fact so you'd finally get off my back."

"So, you're only dating her to get me to leave you alone?" Mr. S asked with genuine curiosity, desperately trying to find out what was going on.

"No!" Weiss floundered, stretching her arms down either side of her body as her hands bent out at the wrist and balled themselves into fists.

"You shouldn't use your relationship as a means to an end, Weiss," Mr. S, said, feeling the need to keep talking and attempting to draw out some sage-like advice from his cluelessness.

"What are you doing?" Weiss almost fell to her knees. Her well trained sense of propriety recoiling at such a drastic loss of form. Her instincts for such things always seemed to fail when it came to talking with her father, never to this extent however.

"I'm just concerned about this unhealthy mindset you're carrying," Mr. S replied in as honest a statement as he could muster at the moment.

"You're the racist!" Weiss replied simply, looking slightly hopeless at the occasion.

"You know, it doesn't seem that way," Mr. S denied calmly, leaning back in his chair and trying to retain his cool as the heavy accusations and public argument wore away at him.

"Actually, you are," a new voice interrupted, drawing his attention to Blake as she stepped forward with a large posture and a cool glare; her ears were prominent for the first time, held fully high in the air. "I don't know what it is that you're trying to accomplish," Blake said with a husky, almost bored, tone that didn't fail to show her youth, "but Weiss is the most kindhearted and caring person I've ever met," she continued past the confused, and almost hurt, looks that Ruby sent her way, "and I won't stand here and let you accuse her of anything. If you want to find something to be concerned about, look at the hiring practices you've instituted that force even the most qualified faunus to struggle for respectable jobs. If you want something to fix, look at the faunus children that your foremen target, putting them to work in the harshest mines for the slightest scraps of food," Blake continued, her fists balling up in a cold rage. "If you really want to signal your moral worries, maybe you should start by giving _all_ of your workers access to clean drinking water?" Blake said, her voice shaking as her eyes shifted into vertical slits that focused on Mr. S's impassive expression, "just don't think that playing these games with us is doing anything worthwhile."

Schwarz moved forward in a defensive posture, hating how she couldn't call for security now until Mr. S ordered it. 'How long are we going to indulge this girl?' she thought.

'Oh,' Mr. S thought, fully appreciating now just how mind burning a crash course in a completely new world's history could be as the full implications of Blake's speech hit him. 'So, basically, I'm Hitler, and my son just kissed a gay jew...on live television.'

He sat back in his chair, absorbing the information as he glared out impassively at the silent crowd of people in his office, not bothering to come up with something to say. What could he say? 'Oh, wait. Now that I think about it, I don't approve of your relationship after all?' He mentally shook his head at his situation, pausing a long moment as he kept an inexpressive face, trying to center himself as Blake's declarations cascaded their way throughout his mind and his gut fell out from under him; the girl's speech affecting him more than he knew it logically should have as the suddenly personal nature of the evils he'd ignored on Earth buried themselves into his heart, hurting as if someone had spritzed acid into his blood.

"Blake, for her part, was valiantly trying not to break down. She didn't regret what she'd said, but the severe silence that now centered around her didn't do much to comfort the normally shy and bookish girl as she stood unsteadily, tunnel vision focused on the vicious glare Mr. Schnee sent her way, the world drowned out in the oppressively claustrophobic sounds of her heartbeat thundering in her ears. Would she be thrown out? A sinister voice sounded in her ever darkening thoughts. Jailed? Executed? She was in Atlas after all. Ever more horrifying scenarios fell upon her like an avalanche, paranoid thoughts running rampant as she tensed, her old survival instinct rising back up as her head twitched towards the door, she had to run, she couldn't let them know she was thinking of running. She-.

She breathed out in silent relief as Weiss's small, cold hand intertwined with her own, drawing her out of her thoughts, as the world seemed to open back up and her heart slowed. 'No. Ozpin is here and Weiss herself said everything would be fine. We'll be fine,' she thought, hoping desperately that she wasn't fooling herself as Mr. Schnee moved to speak and another shard of fear tore through her heart. She gripped Weiss's hand painfully, as if anchoring herself still, and held her breath, awaiting her fate.

"Okay, fair enough. _I'm_ the bad guy," Mr. S admitted lightly, gesturing to himself with a tone somewhere in between seriousness and casual acceptance.

Weiss's patterned response fell dead before it left her lips, instead just giving a disappointed look with a touch of hopeless despair thrown in. Schwarz didn't look any better, looking down at Mr. S as if he'd just kicked a puppy.

A cold second passed, and then another, and another and another and another and another.

Looking around the room, It seemed as if everyone was just getting tired with Mr. S and his surprises at this point. The librarian lady was scowling, as always. The drunkard seemed to be in a transcendent state between passing out, making annoying quips and hangover. Team RWBY froze in a collective state of shock, Schwarz not doing much better and, through it all, Ozpin stood nonchalantly in his corner of the room, sipping from his mug and looking at Mr. S as if this were some big joke that they were all in on.

"Will you still be needing those chairs?" Mr. S asked, wondering if this meant they would all leave now as he attempted to break "awkward silence number thirteen" of the day.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Weiss asked.

* * *

 **NTTN**


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.  
**

 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Weiss asked.

Mr. S leaned back, sighing as he did so.

In times of great stress, Mr. S often found it helpful to revert back to his younger, more naive, though fundamentally wiser, self for guidance. Mentally, he traveled back in time to when summer was good, love was easy, and the world made sense; searching in those nostalgic, rose-colored times for a solution. Meditating on his youth for a moment, the answer quickly became clear to Mr. S, shocking him with it's simplicity: It was time to stop this farce, there would be no more half-truth's, no more sliding past the issue, no more glancing questions away; from now on, there would just be simple, straight up, lies. His game plan now was to see the world for what it was and proclaim it to be something else.

It was thus that Mr. S answered, "What are you talking about? I'm as alright as ever."

"I don't care about _you_ , I just want to know what you're trying to do!" Weiss yelled, supporting herself on the desk with her arms as she glared down at Mr. Schnee.

"I'm not sure what you mean…" Mr. S said with a cocked eyebrow as he circled one hand before him in a leading gesture, deciding it was best for the moment to say as little as he could get away with.

Weiss blinked rapidly, slowly leaning back away with stiff, robotic movements as she looked on in disbelief. The faux-enlightened act she could buy, even as just an act, but her father was nothing other than brutally direct. He HAD to give it up now that they'd all caught on...right? Eventually?

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Weiss repeated, deciding that no other statement would ever fit the situation better than that one.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Mr. S responded a tad more aggressively, his stoic mask giving way under the pressure as he grit his teeth and leaned forward in his chair for the first time. Really, if the universe was going to glitch out his metaphorical save file, plop him into future, space Hitler's body without so much as a 24 hour notice and then expect him to play along, then it had another thing coming. Fuck the rules, he was breaking decorum like he was Dolph Lundgren. "Really," he continued with a slight scowl and a more controlled tone, "I think you'd find my behavior more to your liking if a group of people _hadn't_ burst into my office uninvited."

"Nobody's bursting into your office!" Weiss shouted back just as the office doors burst inward, slamming against the walls with a heavy clang.

"Father, I heard the news," Winter strode into the office, easily navigating the crowded room despite her stiff posture and long strides, eventually coming to a stand before the desk while giving a curious, sideways glance at the harried looking Weiss.

"And it would also be great if people stopped interrup-"

"Nobody's interrupting you, either!" Weiss continued, fully in verbal combat mode.

"See. That jus-" Mr. S started.

"TSHHHH!" a blue hologram appeared before him, the static fading to reveal the hardened face of a tired looking man with a nice suit and a five o-clock shadow. "Mr. Schnee," the man greeted with a slight nod as he looked out with what seemed to be a permanent glare attached to his face.

Mr. S. barely kept himself from jumping back at the sight. Of course, he'd seen holograms numerous times since he arrived here, but all of them had been banners and signs and such, things you saw at a distance; somehow, that made it easier to cope with, if they were at a distance, you didn't _really_ have a visceral reaction to their existence; thus, he might be forgiven for looking surprised when holograms jumped into his face like he was their only hope.

Taking a moment to compose himself, he replied.

"Ah, General Ironwood, Winter," Mr. S said with a jovial tone, giving a polite nod to the respective figures, thanking god for name tags, and barely keeping himself from saying "Ms. Schnee," to what was apparently his daughter. "Any reason you're both visiting me?" Mr. S asked, taking note of their matching uniforms as he worked to keep his nerves from acting up as the room seemed to be filling up with imposing figures. He had to admit, though, their interruption was just what he needed, a nice respite of calm waters in a chaotic ocean of yelling teenage girls.

"I have to ask what you were thinking-! Really? This is unlike you-! The council has been hounding me for the past-! The board's extremely worried at the momen-!" They both sprung into their respective diatribes without warning, blasting Mr. S with enough bad news to fill a New York back alley.

Their overlapping complaints were silenced quickly as Mr. S raised a hand, leaning back in his chair as if absorbing the information. Really, though, it just felt nice to quiet people with a gesture. "Ok, one at a time," he said, taking a breath, " _what_ is going on?" he asked, directing the question to anyone and everyone as he worked to keep the defeated tone from his voice.

"Uh, sir?" Schwarz interjected, pulling the phone away from her head and placing it down. "I think I've looked at enough voicemails: people seem to be upset with you." She said.

"That's an understatement," Qrow's gravelly voice added from the sidelines.

Ok, the puzzle pieces were in place now, all the information needed to find out what the hell was going on. Sure, the pieces were vague, small and oftentimes incomplete, but he could sense that understanding was just a hair's breadth away.

Of course, he was still in a "fuck you, universe!" mood at the moment, and putting effort into _anything_ at the moment sounded about as fun as doing a million piece puzzle after flunking his SAT. So, as it turned out, he didn't do the puzzle work, instead cutting to the heart of the matter with a simple question.

"So...why is everyone so upset, exactly?" he asked, leaning an arm across his desk and tapping his fingers onto the wooden surface.

"Well...uh...What?" Winter asked, leaning forward slightly as she stumbled over her words.

"Get used to it." Weiss deadpanned.

* * *

"So...to clarify. _You're_ mad at me because I don't like faunus." He said, slowly waving his arm to gesture at the wall team RWBY lined up against.

"Yes," the droning chorus came from the sisters of the team as Weiss and Blake elected to stay silent and stare at opposite walls.

"And _everyone else_ is mad at me because Weiss kissed Blake and I was ok with it." Mr. S continued at a slower pace, turning his chair to face Winter and the Hologram of General Ironwood.

"Most everyone of relevance to the issue, yes," Winter answered back with a curt nod, ignoring the glares and pleading looks that Blake and Weiss sent her way. Ironwood leaned over his desk, rubbing his temples as the hologram looked straight down at the mahogany table top.

"So, therefore-"

"Yes! Yes! The answer is yes!" Weiss interrupted with a yell. "Now can you _please_ just call my relationship a disgrace on live television so we can all get out of here?" she said with a strained voice.

Mr. S, despite the evening he was having, was still awestruck by the surreal nature of that statement as he got kicked back to stage two of grief. Was any of this real? Was this one of those science experiments where they test to see if you'd kill someone because some guy in a lab coat told you to? Still riding the trailing edge of his indignation, Mr. S closed his eyes with a sigh as he tilted his neck down and shook his head.

"I can't believe this," he said with an amazed tone. Really? He gets launched across the very fabric of space and time into a futuristic, alien planet just so he could say racist things on tv? Of all the alternate realities to end up in, he gets sent to the Starfleet Confederacy?

Well, if watching Black Mirror had taught him anything, it was to say no to this metaphorical pig.

Opening his eyes, he glared out into the room as he made a decision.

"No," he said with a tone of conviction.

"What do you mean 'no'" Weiss said with a strained voice.

"No," Mr. S responded evenly once more, drawing all the strength that he could from all those D.A.R.E ads embedded into his memory.

"Just call the news and tell them you don't approve!" Weiss said, growing desperate.

"No." Mr. S repeated.

"Really? You hate me that much?" Weiss seethed, "you'd be willing to risk all of this just to keep me trapped here?" she said, raising her arms up to gesture at the general surroundings, "just to keep me tied to the bame you've worked so hard to ruin?"

"And what would I be risking, exactly?" Mr. S responded in a tone that he hoped came off as sarcastic.

"Actually, father. If I may interject," Winter interrupted, "you should consider the _severely negative_ impact this could have on the company," she said keeping her voice even.

'Ahh, shit. I've still gotta stay in character,' Mr. S thought as he remembered that he still had a part to play, even if he didn't know what that part was supposed to be…

"Well, obviously, I won't be risking much," Mr. S replied, fully committed to listening to his elementary school self's wisdom.

"What do you mean?" Weiss asked, hunched over with a sneer.

"Huhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Mr S sighed a deep and solemn sigh, making very clear the depths of his disappointment at being surrounded by feeble-minded plebs who couldn't see the obvious. Drawing his sigh out for as long as he could, he frantically thought of reasons why he was right.

'Come on, come on, brain give me something...Fuck, fuck, fuck, what was I thinking! I don't know shit! I'm such an idiot, acting like I knew what I was talking about. Fuck, how am I supposed to come up with anything when the only thing I know is that this place sells dust. And I don't even know what that i- actually, wait a minute…' he thought, almost smiling giddily as a desperate gamble appeared before him.

"What?" Weiss asked impatiently.

"Schwarz, how are stocks?" He asked with an overconfident tone, not bothering to face his secretary as he spoke.

Schwarz turned to look out the glass wall, glancing at the giant screen on the factory wall, taking in the green line as it snaked its way along a graph, before looking back at Mr. S. "Uhh...they're stable, sir."

"See?" He said as if that proved everything. "We sell _dust_ people," he continued as if he knew exactly what that entailed besides a vague Saudi Arabia corollary he'd made in his mind. "We could start funding terrorist groups and even then I'm sure people would hesitate to go green," he said, accidentally referencing the Schnee corp. competitor, Green co., a dust distributing company that Mr. Schnee had been instrumental in counter programming to near oblivion.

"So stop being monday night-" Mr. S paused.

'Wait,' Mr. S thought. 'I can't say "Monday night quarterback," they might not play football here!' he thought as he felt his plan slip out from underneath him.

"Uh…" Mr. S snapped his fingers in consternation. "Uh, Schwarz, what's that saying with the sports and the hindsight," he asked, hoping to seem confused enough that nobody here would ask what "Monday" was.

"Being a Monday night team captain, sir," Schwarz answered nonchalantly.

"Yeah, that," Mr. S answered, wondering if they had Garfield comic strips too.

Thankfully for Mr. S, this was one of those moments where being an alien visitor could be confused for being an out of touch rich person, as noted by the several face palms that went through the room.

"Wait, you don't understand," Ironwood said, rising from his chair as the hologram rose up to look Mr. S in the face.

"What?" Mr. S asked, his heart beating into his esophagus as he hoped he didn't fuck up his reasoning too badly.

For those of you that are getting hopeful thoughts, let us all acknowledge that Mr. S's characterization of the situation, as him being Hitler and his son kissing a gay jew, is a bit off. It would be more appropriate to describe the situation as him being Hitler, and his son kissing a gay jew who happened to be Trotsky.

"Blake is-" Ironwood began.

"Breaking news!" a blaring television interrupted, turning all heads to the first wall television as Qrow stood fiddling with its controls, himself staring up at the menacing portrait of Blake that appeared on the tv screen. "We are just getting this," the reported announced, almost falling off of her desk with giddy excitement as she pressed a finger tightly against her earpiece. "BLAKE BELLADONNA had been CONFIRMED to be a former, and possibly current, member of the WHITE FANG TERRORIST ORGANIZATION," she said, almost pounding the desk as her sweat glistened in the camera lights. "So far, Mr. Schnee has declined to respond to any queries about the matter-" she continued as Schwarz took on a guilty look and an areal shot of Schnee manor appeared in the corner of the screen.

"Follow channel 2 faction news-" the reporter began to say before her voice, along with the approaching noise of helicopter rotors, was quickly downed out by a beating cacophony that came from every side of the office. The dancing jig of panic, heard even through the ceiling, filled the room as Mr. S sat frozen in his chair, trying not to be the first one to move in a room filled with shocked faces.

Faintly, just faintly, the chaotic, disjointed song of "SELL! SELL! SELL!" could be heard through the office walls, just in time for the green-tinted, snow-white tiles of the room to turn a magenta red as Mr. S guessed what that entailed for the TV Screen behind him.

Turning his chair around just as everyone recovered enough of their senses to follow his gaze, Mr. S. looked on as the large screen presented a precipitously falling red line on an expanding graph, quickly showing the company's stocks dipping below the bottom of the screen as Mr. S felt himself pressed back into his chair by the action, never fully appreciating before how solid stocks could feel when they sucker punched you in the gut.

The room fell maddeningly silent as the tv fell into the background and the panicking investors in the surrounding rooms added pressure and confusion with their overlapping voices. The night crew in factory room below didn't seem to be doing much better, crowding around the tv screen as they stared up at the numbers in horror.

"Now, that _might_ be a problem," Mr. S admitted, fully smacked out of his "angry at the universe" phase by the Scrooge McDuck levels of money that was apparently going down the drain.

"MIGHT!?" Weiss responded with a shrill, growling voice.

"MIGHT!?" she said again, moving to stand before the glass wall before gesturing at the falling stock prices. "How could this be anything other than a complete nightmare?" Weiss asked, her form tinted a hellish red by the light, fitting well with the "avatar of rage" look she seemed to be rocking.

"Well, I would like to note that all is not as it seems with that graph," Mr. S answered while a sensible part of him, buried deep inside his psyche, screamed at him to shut up.

"What could possibly be misleading about this!? The Line. Is Going. Down." Weiss enunciated.

"Well...the y axis doesn't start at zero, for one," Mr. S answered softly.

It was an instant after this utterance that Mr. S realized. Elementary-schoolers are idiots.

* * *

 **NTTN**


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.  
**

 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

BRBEEP! BEERP! BEEPEREP! A muffled cacophony of phone calls rang through the hologram as the figure of Ironwood turned off to the side to observe the source of the sound in a resigned fashion, soon moving back to face Mr. S with a look of...almost annoyance…

"Huh," he sighed, "I've got to go; the heads are looking for someone to blame," he said, focusing a serious look on Mr. S. "Take care of things on your end, I'll talk with you at our next meeting," he finished with a short nod before the hologram cut out and a blast of wind rushed past Mr. S.

Mr. S's eyes widened in surprise, the tips of his mustache drifting lightly in the current as Schwarz appeared suddenly before his desk. Shifting his head up from where he'd been looking at the holo-projector, he caught Schwarz taking a defensive stance before him. Blake, who, for the most part, looked as if all the blood had been drained out of her, hardly mustered any reaction to the secretary as Yang and Ruby quickly moved to flank either side of the catatonic faunus, forming a defensive barrier between her and Schwarz.

Weiss watched on worriedly before rushing forward and skidding to a stop inches from the right side of the desk.

"Well?" Weiss asked, almost breathless with anticipation and a well-hidden sense of anxiety as she tried to occupy Mr. Schnee with the falling stock prices, hoping for the first time that he'd keep his sudden turn of opinion and not call security, or worse.

"Sir, I _highly_ recommend we call security," Schwarz suggested with a steady, though strained, tone as she stood steadfastly, glaring at Blake. Weiss, meanwhile, mentally applied some choice words to the secretary.

"Eh, yeah, just calm down there for a second, Schwarz," Mr. S replied in a casual, half distracted, manner as he nervously eyed the falling stock numbers, putting forward as much concern as he could muster about the Blake situation. Noticing the panicked expression that Schwarz directed towards him, he quickly threw back a look of 'geez, calm down, my company's dying here!' as he made a mental note to talk to Schwarz about her priorities. I mean, terrorist or no, they were dealing with a teenage girl here, she wasn't hurting him period, especially when considering that they were in a room filled with eight other people, at least one of whom didn't want him dead.

Dismissing her concerns, Mr. S quickly turned his attention back to the stock screen, watching the red line continue to fall as he experienced his stomach turning with every dip and rise of the graph, once again pressing back into his chair as if the graph were a crashing plane that he'd been strapped to. He stared, entranced, as every sudden, upward jerk of the numbers shot a beacon of hope into his heart that the trend might start reversi- Beep Beep Beep!

He was drawn back into the present as he found himself in a loud room filled with quiet people, the clamor of the "investors next door" playing through the walls like they were surround-sound speakers as another phone went off.

Beep Beep Beep! There was that noise again.

The sound rung out once more as Mr. S looked about in confusion before whipping his head toward Schwarz.

"I thought you turned the phone off?" He asked.

"I think that's you, sir," Schwarz responded without looking away from her target, prompting Mr. S to quickly pull the glowing scroll from his pocket.

Looking confusedly at the opaque screen for a moment, he swiped his thumb over the fingerprint scanner, clearing away the frosted glass effect and revealing the mystery caller.

'Huh, so I do know her…' he thought, tilting his head at the confidently smirking, cherry red lips of the alluring woman on the screen. Strangely enough, no name showed up anywhere with the profile photo of the blonde.

Shifting the phone in his hand, Mr. S pressed what looked like the "pick up call" button but was actually the "speaker" button.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" the voice on the other side rang out, one lightening-and-thunder sound effect away from impersonating Maleficent. "I didn't think I'd be seeing the fall of 'the great Mr. Schnee' so soon, _fool_ ," the harsh voice announced through the now relatively quiet room. "And oh, what a wondrous fall it was," she continued in a giddy tone of voice. "You have no idea-"

'I think she's been saving this up," Mr. S thought with a curious expression as a sudden change of tone brought his attention back to the monologue.

"-AHAHAHA, you should just retire now! And I hope you won't be brave enough to show up at this months STOCK meeting...because you're a laughing STOCK! HAHAHAHAHA! And I'll be sure to be laughing with the rest of them!" she said, pausing a moment to catch her breath and savor the moment. "But really, truly," she said, putting a brief stall to her tone, "I hope you see now how little respect you had without your wife's name, Jaquez." she finished with a sneer, taking back control of her frenzied sentence.

"I'm sorry? Who is this?" Mr. S asked.

"AGHHH!" she sneered out before the line cut off abruptly.

"Hehehe!" Mr. S chuckled lightly, shaking his head in amusement at the now blank phone screen.

"What are you laughing at!" Weiss interrupted, slamming her palms down on the edge of his desk. "The company's dying!" she announced with a panicked look as Winter looked on from behind with a curious expression.

"Since when do you care, anyway?" Mr. S asked defensively, "You're the one that caused this in the first place!"

"I don't hate the company, I just hate _you_!" Weiss responded yet more aggressively as Mr. S felt like he'd just stuck his face behind a jet engine.

'Ouch.' Mr. S, thought.

"Ok, so we're all being very candid today," Mr. S responded calmly, raising his palms up in a calming gesture. "So, candidly, let me ask, of all the faunus in the world," he circled his hands, "you couldn't have chosen one that _wasn't_ , and, I repeat, _wasn't_ a terrorist?"

'Ooooh, burn!'

"She's not a terrorist!" a chorus of voices responded from all non-Blake members of team RWBY.

"Right, right, she's a 'freedom fighter'," Mr. S replied, making air quotes.

"No, the news is lying!" Weiss responded. "She's actually not a terrorist," she clarified further, folding one arm across her chest as a hand rose to rub at her temples, hoping that he'd forget about the dressing down Blake had given him just moments before becoming very arrest-able.

"Wait, really?" Mr. S asked, swiveling his chair around to face Weiss at that declaration.

"Wait," Weiss drew back, folding her arms in on herself as she looked blankly down at Mr. S along with the rest of the room. "Wait, what?" Weiss asked, making sure that she was hearing that hopeful tone in his voice right.

"I'm asking if you're really not affiliated with the White Fang," Mr. S said, swiveling once more to address Blake through the crowd of people standing between the two of them. "I'd really like to clear this up with the press."

"Uh...well," Blake struggled, desperately wanting to say "yes" but somehow unable to spit out what would be a technically false answer."It's...complicated?" she finally said.

"Sir, I'm calling security," Schwarz said, grabbing the phone.

* * *

 **NTTN**


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.  
**

 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

"Now hold on, Schwarz. Let's hear her out," Mr. S proclaimed, speaking in a gentle, understanding, and genuinely hopeful tone of voice that everyone elected to ignore for the sake of their sanity.

"Sir, as the head of your security, I can't allow you to sit here with an admitted terrorist!" Schwarz explained, turning slightly to face Mr. S while making sure to keep Blake in her periphery.

"Don't get too excited now, Schwarz," Mr. S beckoned. "At worst, she's a former member; besides, I doubt Weiss is the kind to knowingly date a murderer," he said, guessing.

"I highly doubt the risk is worth whatever information she can offer," Schwarz retorted, managing to keep her tone professional.

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing," he said, lying.

"Even so, can this discussion not be held off until _proper_ security measures are in place?" Schwarz said with a pleading tone.

"That's not feasible given the current situation," Mr. S said, gesturing to the red screen behind him and slipping comfortably into that alien vernacular which seemed to take effort to avoid. "Besides," he continued, "I doubt it's even necessary," he said before turning to look at Blake and asking "What _were_ you doing in the White Fang? Carrying letters? Spying?"

"Front line combat," Blake answered mechanically.

"Sir!" Schwarz said nervously, gripping the phone in her hand.

"We still don't have the full story here, she could be a victim of circumstance." Mr. S pointed out. Again, everyone elected to pretend he didn't say that.

"And she _could_ also have joined willingly," Schwarz retorted.

"Well, there's only one way to find out isn't there?" He said, looking over to Blake and asking, "If you could elaborate, that would be nice."

Blake, for her part, was still working to dig herself out of the catatonic state she'd been worked into; mortified into stillness by the sudden reveal of her deepest secrets on live television, the completely off the wall happenings of the past couple of hours, as well as the obligations that kept her from running. It was all for the best, though, she would gather later on: that office was probably the safest place in all of Atlas for her at the time, considering its inhabitants.

"Blake, wake up!" she heard Yang whisper as Ruby worked to gently shake her awake.

"Anytime today, if you could," Mr. S said, just as Blake's brain rebooted and her eyes blinked open, her irises relaxing into gentler circles.

"Uh, well," Blake stumbled awake, "my father was a-"

"Keep it short, we don't have much time," Mr. S said, hiding his impatient tone while he nervously glanced back at the stock screen behind him. "Around twenty words would be ideal," he added, looking back at her.

"Well, I was born into the white fang when it was good. I guess I stuck around too long after the fact," Blake said easily, surprising herself with her own words.

Not for the first time, Mr. S was struck back: this time for a completely different reason than fear or surprise or self preservation. He found himself easily slipping on a mask of calm analysis as his heart rung out in response to the sorrow in Blake's voice: the sorrow of lost ties and crushed hopes. With that, he found himself taken fully away from the strangeness of his situation and drawn into the fact that he was surrounded by _people: p_ eople just like him and everyone he'd ever known, living all over this world and deeply under his power. He wouldn't know how to express this moment until later, but that sorrowful moment would be the healing light that burned away the acid in his heart, and gave him a purpose for being there.

Of course, without the clarity of hindsight all that the sobering moment had managed was to tear him fro his idle world of apathetic observation into the harsh reality of the room. 'People' the word seemed to echo in his mind as the distressed voices of investors rung against his ears and the desperate murmurs of worry coming from the factory floor tickled against his ears, and a casual glance toward the girls before him revealed anguish, heart wrenched despair and a stubborn defensiveness as they all seemed to huddle together for protection. He held back a cringe as he felt the endless dread this inspired in his soul. People were getting hurt, in ways that could ruin lives and he-

"Father, you have to save the company!" Weiss's voice called out as she leaned tiredely onto his desk, fear and trepidation leaking through into her words as the extended silence harried her, making more desperate attempts to draw Blake away from his attention.

Mr. S once again, was pulled from his thoughts. That one word, "father" lighting up in his mind, seeming alien the way it left Weiss's lips. 'She wants something,' He thought instinctively, deducing that from her tone, the formaility and nice blandness of her words, as well as the fact that her sentence had contained a request.

'Save the company.' The phrase shone in his mind as he clung to it and centered himself.

"Give me a moment, I'm thinking," he turned to Weiss with an earnest tone and false confidence. He quickly turned back to his desk and looked intently into the surface, his heart slowing and that stagnant pool of dread in his stomach lightening as if it had been set aflame, energizing him until excited shivers ran up his shoulders and the world came into crystal clarity. Incidents were gut wrenching and horrible, often requiring that you answer for something, but this...this was a _problem,_ something he could face and look for an answer in.

'I've spent my entire career solving problems, no need to stop now,' he thought confidently as an excited jitter went up hs body and he quickly slipped back into that comfortable suit of engineer. His mind ran faster than he could hardly process, running quickly over thoughts and concepts on levels that couldn't be described with words, as he planned, thought and planned his thinking. In a flash, he came to the first goal, his mind turning and his gut whizzing as he dredged up every last bit of knowledge aboout companies and economics that he could muster, every incident, news article, example, case study and definition he'd ever learned rushing forth to present itself in his minds eye.

A company is a large entity that exchanges goods and/or services in order to make a profit.

...

That was it. Mr. S realized in a panic, once again cursing that charismatic physics professor who'd swindled him into taking Quantum Mechanics as an elective when he was considering a business class!

He quickly dropped that train of thought, however as anxiety began to rise...people were depending on him and he was just sitting here! People were going to-

'Oh,' the thought came.

It was _people_ that he needed to fix this problem for, _people_ that were the cause of those red numbers behind him and, fundamentally, people, panicking people but people nonetheless, that made up Schnee Crop; what those people needed at this moment was a leader, and he would need to become that leader he accepted; a strange calm falling over him as everything fell into perspective.

'Ok, I need to be a leader,' he thought, thinking through the issue in as simple terms as he could muster. 'That's not too bad. I've lead more engineering projects than I can count over the years and this is just like that,' he continued, building confidence. 'Yeah! I'm basically just leading an engineering group after the world's started suspecting us of affiliating with terrorists,' he thought with a hopeful tone shortly before getting serious.

'First order of business, damage control,' he decided, turning to Schwarz with a serious look.

"Schwarz," he said, breaking the increasingly antsy secretary from her focused reverie before continuing on with his plan. "Set up a press meeting for," he paused, taking a moment to confer with his watch, "...twenty minutes from now, and contact the best speech writers you can get a hold of, they have fifteen minutes to write the best speech ever. Offer them whatever we can afford," he ordered, strategically sidestepping any currency names.

"What do you want the speech to say?" Schwarz asked, the purpose driven task doing a great deal to calm her harried nerves shortly before a mad screaming emanated from the tv, drawing all eyes onto the news station once more.

"The White Fang are controlling the Schnee Corporation, man!" a twenty something fellow with bare feet, torn pants and an over sized, green ski hat proclaimed directly into the news camera, completely ignoring the reporter next to him in his frenzied theorizing. "How else do you thing those faunus get all that dust?" he proclaimed with wide open, red eyes as he stepped forward to stare deeply into the camera, "they've been controlling it this entire time! Right under our noses! And now they're ready to reveal themselves! I tell ya that Beacon attack was just the beginning-" the footage suddenly cut off, revealing the very excited news anchor as she struggled to maintain a neutral face for the camera.

"You heard it there from our on-the-ground-reporter Heinz Dasler," the anchor said, leaning forward across her desk. "Though extreme, people are starting to worry as to what _possible_ connection the Schnee family has to the White Fang, and events transpiring are-" a blue light appeared once more as the tv muted.

"Thank you, Schwarz," Mr. S said without having to look over at the secretary. "And as to what I want the speech to say…" Mr. S hesitated, circling a hand in thought and leaning back in his chair, "how about, 'I'm not a terrorist and neither is she'," he said, gesturing towards Blake through the wall of people between them.

"Yes, sir," Schwarz said, tapping furiously onto her tablet, making sure to keep Blake in sight.

"Now, Blake," Mr. S said, standing up from his chair as he did so and pacing around to the front of his desk, "what exactly wa-"

"Wait, you're not planning on going in front of the camera like that, are you?" Weiss interrupted with a genuinely frightened tone.

"Like what?" Mr. S asked, looking down at himself as Winter, Schwarz, Glynda and Ozpin all honed their eyes onto the lower left section of Mr. Schnee's suit jacket.

"Like that!" Weiss said, stepping forward and pointing at a spot on the lower left portion of his suit: and there, just in front of Weiss's finger, was a spot of cloth which, in just the right light, on just the right day, seen by _just_ the right eagle, could possibly have been made out to be a stain.

"So what?" Mr. S responded without thinking.

"What do you mean 'so what'?" Weiss responded angrily, "the company's failing, you can't go out in front of the cameras like you're already a washed up drunk!" she finished as Ruby self-consciously looked at the macaroni stains decorating her dress.

"I have to agree, sir," Schwarz said.

"It _would_ be bad form," Winter added as Ruby frantically started folding her dress to hide the stains.

"Ok, so do you want me to chang-"

"What is wrong with you!" Weiss interrupted once more, now transitioning to a more personal anger at the man who wouldn't let her eat supper until her clothes were "prim, proper and perfect." "All changing your clothes will do is let everyone know you stained them! And theories about the size of said stain are going to be headlining the news for weeks. Or, wait, they _would_ be headlining the news if you hadn't tanked the company!" Weiss yelled, clicking her heels together and pointing once more to the stock screen.

"Very well," he conceded, eager to move the topic of conversation, "Schwarz, have someone send down another white sui-"

"We no longer carry identical items in your wardrobe sir, not since the duplicate tie incident," Schwarz said with a weary sigh and bad memories.

"Huh," Mr. S sighed, putting his face into his palm. This was going to be a long event.

* * *

 **NTTN**


	7. Chapter 7

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.  
**

 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

Mr. S sighed into his palm, feeling more and more hopeless by the moment.

"But," Schwarz said, shooting happiness straight into Mr. S's heart more effectively than any drug, "we can have it washed in the laundry room."

"Excellent," Mr. S replied before moving off the desk he'd been leaning against and facing the left wall. "You, you, come with me," he said, gesturing towards Ruby and Blake respectively before heading towards the door.

"Wait, you can't go alone with he-"

"Schwarz," Mr. S interrupted softly, "do you trust my judgement?"

"Eh..ugh...yes," Schwarz admitted, looking as if she were swallowing mud.

"Good, now-" Mr. S began.

"But...how am I supposed to do all of this by myself! I'd need your help and authorizatio-"

"Delegate!" Mr. S said, walking backwards towards the exit and tossing her the master access card he'd grown so used to using over the course of the work day.

"Wait…" Schwarz said, broken out of her argument and catching the card, reverently holding it in two palms, "you're giving me...permission to lead?"

"Yes, do whatever you have to do. I trust you to succeed!" Mr. S shouted back as he walked out the door.

"Wait a minute!" Weiss shouted, rushing out behind him, causing the rest of team RWBY to follow after her, Ruby and Yang herding the still dazed Blake along with them.

Schwarz stood disbelievingly, staring, wide eyed, at the card in her hand as the rest of her visitors sat awkwardly alongside her in the encompassing silence.

Of course, something had to come along and break the peace.

"Schwarz!" the distant voice of Mr. Schnee yelled.

"Yes, sir!" Schwarz yelled back.

"Where is the laundry room!" she heard, shouted back.

"It's on the third level of the basement, sir."

"How many levels are there in the basement, again?" Mr. S asked, as if he were trying to remember the answer which he totally knew all along.

"Ten, sir." Schwarz replied, already swiping the card over her tablet as she sent out the necessary orders.

"So, is it on level negative three or level negative seven?"

"Level negative seven, sir," Schwarz replied.

Once again, there was a quiet, as schwarz tapped away at the tablet she cradled in her forearm.

"...Schwarz, where's the elevator?"

"On your left, sir," Schwarz answered, not looking up from her tablet.

* * *

Weiss and company followed furiously behind Mr. S as they came upon the elevator.

"What are you up to?" Weiss asked suspiciously, her heels clicking furiously as a now partially awake Blake trailed behind her, sending worried looks in her direction.

"I'm going to wash my shirt, Weiss," Mr. S answered, annoying her with the misuse of proper dress terminology.

"You could wash it on your own, you know," Weiss pointed out aggressively, "why try to drag Blake and Ruby along with you."

"Oh, I thought I could use the company," Mr. S replied with a casual tone. "Also, I thought it might be important to know more about the "not-a-terrorist" that's managed to get famous all of a sudden."

"Then why did you want _Ruby_ ," Weiss said with complete disbelief before pausing a moment and sending an apologetic look back to the pouting, and slightly annoyed, Ruby behind her.

Mr. S paused a second, thinking of a way to formulate his answer without using the phrases, "Napoleon Complex","Anger Issues","Axe Murderer", or "Uni Bomber-Kitty".

"Well, to be honest, she seemed to be the least insane person in your group," Mr. S settled, stopping at the wall of elevator doors and pressing the summon button, really wishing he still had his master access card, which would have given him priority.

"And why should we follow you?" Weiss responded with a heated tone, just as a bell chimed and the elevator doors opened.

"Because you already are," Mr. S responded, stepping into the empty elevator compartment before him.

"Just answer the question," Weiss retorted as she stepped in behind him and the rest of team RWBY followed behind her. Despite her stoked fury, Weiss was curious to know the answer; she couldn't return to the office as it was, in any case.

"Because you don't want the company to fail any more than I do," Mr. S responded evenly, "and I'll need your help to give it the best chance of survival," he finished, looking over at team RWBY and Blake in particular.

Blake shared a sideways glance with Weiss before turning to look at an empty corner of the elevator.

* * *

Mr. S was regretting not asking Schwarz what room number the laundry room was in...until the elevator doors opened, that is.

Ding! The bell sounded as the metal doors glided silently apart and the sound of laundry washed over them. Stepping out of the elevator felt more like walking into a museum than any laundry room. In fact, calling this place a "laundry room" would be an injustice; It was more like a laundry level, with whirring machines embedded across every wall, covering every surface up to the high ceiling as crawling machines trawled along the walls, carrying baskets of laundry to and fro as a large sign reading "Trapp Laundry" hung visibly across the opposite wall.

The center of the room was a clean, white tiled, endeavor with "shelves" of machines lining the space as maids patrolled the isles, carrying hampers and staring, wide eyed, at the newest visitors.

Ding! The next elevator door opened as several, heavily armed, security bots exited, leaving behind a worried group of executives as they stepped onto the floor and turned mechanically, heading towards Mr. Schnee.

"Oh, great, who sent _these_ things over?" Weiss asked with a tone of contempt.

That response, coupled with the lack of screaming and running from anyone on the floor, hinted to Mr. S that these killer robots were of the "come with me if you vvant to live" variety, causing him to ignore the following robots along with the staring maids as he hurriedly picked out the fanciest looking machine within reach and strode towards its location, followed closely by team RWBY and again by team Robot.

Stopping just before the rainbow colored, sleek, and ivory chromed washing machine, Mr. S...stared at it in confusion, too afraid to ask where the buttons were.

"Uhm...sir?" Ruby asked, leaning over to look past Yang's shoulder, "do you...not know how to use that washing machine?" she asked with a soft tone.

"Apparently not," Mr. S replied with a resigned voice, still leaning down to stare into the glass globe protruding from the center face of the machine.

"Would you like me to help?" Ruby asked just as softly.

"It would be appreciated," Mr. S replied as Ruby slinked past Yang's worried grasp and stalked slowly over to the machine in question.

'Oh my gods, oh my gods, oh my gods, oh my gods!' Ruby rapidly chanted in her head, 'I can't believe I get to touch a RAZR BACH 9000! '"It's more expensive than the Razr Bach 6000, but it's filled to the brim with all sorts of fun features!"' she thought, mentally reciting the slogan that had been drilled into her head from childhood. 'I can almost smell the chrome-titanium heating units.'

Mr. S decided to ignore the giddly jumping girl as she smiled maniacally and expertly pulled apart the configurable units of the machine, instead looking over at Blake, who leaned against the wall of washers with her arms crossed as she tried to huddle herself in the barrier the rest of the team had formed around her.

"Blake, was it?" He inquired, drawing the sulking girl's attention to him as he removed his suit coat and gently folded it up in his hands.

"Yes," she replied coldly, not seeming to understand his words as her distant eyes quickly turned back to examine the flooring ahead.

"Huhhh," Mr. S sighed at the attitude. He knew that look from all the little kids he'd seen sulking at the youth center he volunteered at, and he knew he wouldn't be getting any help until her issues were dealt with. "You know, you've been unusually quiet lately," he ventured, trying to start a conversation and earning the defensive glares of Weiss and Yang as they closed in closer around Blake.

Blake didn't respond, merely gazing in between the statuesque security bots, watching their sentinel like forms in her periphery as she became lost in the view of the laundry room before her.

"Look," Mr. S started easily, "I realize that you're not having the best of times right now, being accused of being a terrorist and such," he continued, earning another glare from Yang as Weiss continued her last one, "but if we want to salvage the company _and_ your reputation, I'm going to need your cooperation," Mr. S proposed, holding the long silence after he finished his speech as he waited anxiously.

Blake held her own silence, staring at the reflection in the tiled floor for over a minute as she lethargically moved herself to answer, fighting against the defeated spirit inside of her that was worrying over how this would affect her life at beacon and really just wanted a cat-nap for the next twenty four hours. "What do you need?" she asked, sounding more like a prisoner than she'd intended.

"Just tell me about your time in the White Fang and your affiliation with them. Feel free to go into more detail, we need a story to give to the press," Mr. S quickly answered, eager to move the conversation along.

Blake took a moment to formulate her words while Mr. S waited to the side with a patient mask. "I never killed anyone," she responded coldly.

"We're all well aware," Mr. S interrupted with a calming tone, "we wouldn't be having this conversation if you did."

Another silence.

"Is there anything else of importance to the case you'd like to reveal?" Mr. S asked.

Blake stayed silent while Mr. S continued to wait with an expectant look, even past the point where he knew he wouldn't be getting any more answers.

"Umm, sir," Ruby said in a strained voice, drawing Mr. S's gaze to her struggling form as she forcibly held together a flashing module in her arms, pulling it away from the washing machine it was attached to with a rip chord as she braced a foot against the washer itself and supported the module on her raised knee. "If you could hand over your coat," she continued breathlessly, "... hurry!"

Quickly, Mr. S tossed the coat towards Ruby, causing the girl to lurched forward with great effort and catch the article of clothing in the modular basket she'd forced open in her hands.

SNAP!

The box snapped shut around the coat and the rip-chord reeled the object into the larger machine, where Mr. S was sure several tornadoes subsequently apparated as the noise level of the machine rose incredibly, though somehow still oddly refined.

Within seconds the box popped out and snapped open, revealing a clean, dry and freshly pressed suit that was warm to the touch and felt like heaven. Mr. S tried not to show any signs of being impressed as he took the coat and put it on, leaving the machine to snap shut and reel back on itself once more as he stepped away from it.

"Huh," Mr. S closed his eyes to sigh as the comforting weight of the suit rested once more upon his shoulders, making him feel just slightly more evil in the process. This had not been a productive trip. Although, he had to admit, the suit just _looked better_ without the stain, really rather put-together as a whole.

* * *

 **NTTN**


	8. Chapter 8

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.**

 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

"Sir! You're back! I see the security I sent for arrived on time," Schwarz said with a smile as they entered back into the office, the whir of robotics limbs filling the air as two sentinels followed the group in and Weiss returned a look of contempt for the secretary.

"How is everything coming along?" Mr. S responded, not bothering to think of any pleasantries at the moment.

"Everything is proceeding expediently," Schwarz replied, returning to her tablet. "I've sent an invitation to the press for a conference in the main courtyard, and Adolph's just sent in the speech you requested," Schwarz continued, swiping at her tablet and bringing up the speech on one of the office TVs.

"Already?" Mr. S asked, deciding to ignore the fact that they apparently had an in-house speech writer that he should have known on a first name basis. Looking over the speech displayed across the nearby TV screen, Mr. S nodded in approval. He had to admit, it was quite a masterful speech for such a short amount of time; it hit all the right beats, allowed for deviation from the script and, most importantly, was easy to present. Although, Mr. S had to say, the speech might have been a tad too...impassioned.

Looking over the speech several more times, he was soon interrupted as Schwarz appeared by his side and pushed a print out of the speech into his hands. "The Press is gathered sir, they'll be expecting you."

"A moment," Mr. S responded as he pulled out his scroll.

"Yes, sir," Schwarz replied quietly so as to not disturb Mr. Schnee's important preparations. There was no doubt in her mind that he was shifting around millions in stock merely in _preparation_ for his speech. Not wasting the moment, she turned to her own duties, tapping away at her tablet.

Hurriedly, Mr. S typed out "What is White Fang?", readying to define the dozen or so terms he saw on the document and didn't understand. "And while you're at it, run a background check on our speech writer," Mr. S added, not looking away from his scroll.

"Yes, sir," Schwarz added, her eyes flickering over her crowded tablet screen as Mr. S spent the next several minutes looking intently between paper and screen, all while trying to hide the transparent back of his phone from any prying eyes.

Soon enough, he was finished.

Mr. S nervously dallied about on his phone, searching for more excuses to stay behind. Such it was he leapt in before he could change his mind and proclaimed, "Schwarz, let's go."

"Of course, sir," Schwarz responded, powering down the tablet and placing it onto the desk, wringing her sprained wrist afterwards and receiving a deep look of understanding from the librarian lady.

…

Soon, he found himself following Schwarz down a barren hallway with Weiss and the rest of team RWBY walking along behind him. He took a deep breath when the glass doors came into view, a marble stair way and the lush garden beyond it visible through the glass, illuminated by the thousand artificial lights of several dozen news vehicles and camera setups as a crowd of people packed around the podium, stone silent with expectation. Squaring his shoulders, he pushed back all the nervous thoughts bombarding his mind, telling him that he should have set this for an hour later, a day later, that he wasn't prepared, that it wasn't too late to reschedule if he fainted and faked a health crisis.

Shaking away those thoughts, Mr. S looked forward, deciding to use what little time he had on something more productive than being nervous. And, despite his bravado, he had to admit that he _was_ unprepared in at least one respect. Looking down at the speech showed no mention of Blake and, considering the circumstances, he'd have to say _something_ about her on that podium.

"Blake," Mr. S said solemnly, drawing the attention of everyone around him, "I realize you're not in the right mood to want to...act strategically," he said, strategically. "But, for both our sakes, just tell me this…' he paused a moment, formulating the phrase. "Did you stay with the White Fang after they began terrorist activities?"

"Yes," Blake responded, surprising herself with how easy it was to admit that to the man. She knew it was because of how low she must've stood in the man's eyes already, so she didn't really feel shy about confirming his beliefs about her, but, strangely enough, it felt more...freeing than that, like she was talking to a fatherly therapist than "Mr. Schnee". She wasn't sure how to describe it, even to herself.

"But she didn'-", "She never-" Ruby and Weiss both began before they were interrupted by the intensely stern voice of Mr. Schnee.

"How long?" He asked.

"Five years," Blake answered, again without any hesitation despite the fear that crept into her heart at his change of tone. Maybe she was just too tired to hide anymore, the world already thought worse of her.

"But really," Weiss said, chuckling nervously, "she never hurt anybody," she continued as she elbowed Blake in the gut with a whispered "shut up!"

Mr. S breathed thoughtfully through his nose as he brought a hand up to grab his chin. "Is there any evidence that could link you to the white fang after their turn?" he asked with an inquisitive expression.

"Uhhh...Maybe?" Blake answered.

…

"...and I remember first learning how she so bravely left the white fang, her only home, immediately, and. I. Say. _Immediately_. after their ideals turned to ones she could no longer support," Mr. S said, almost pounding on the podium with conviction.

Meanwhile, Schwarz stood off to the side behind him as her face showed a perfectly calm mask of concealed emotional turmoil. Team RWBY lined up besides Schwarz in WBYR formation, left to right, showing an alternating pattern of "barely contained rage" and "horrified anxiety".

" _THIS_ is why, I am naming Blake the new head of our Faunus Outreach Committee," Mr. S continued, "which will be dedicated to forming closer ties with the former leaders of the White Fang, the leaders of Menagerie, and all faunus alike, as well as supporting the the kind of Faunus activism which we hope will bring positive change to BOTH Humanity and Faunus kind." Mr. S finished his speech with a smile as Weiss sputtered in the background, breaking composure along with rest of her team as Yang scowled, Ruby hiccuped and a slow look of hopeless despair drew itself across Blake's features for the fourth time that hour. Schwarz herself took it all in stride, striding forward to hook her arm through Blake's and leading her toward the podium ahead before the rest of team RWBY caught on. Mr. S noticed the approaching pair and turned slightly to pose for the camera, moving his arm to hug around the terrified-looking faunus' shoulders as a roar of questions and camera Flashes washed over their forms.

Blake, for her part, was still wondering what Mr. S meant by "Faunus outreach committee" and "Blake will be the new head" and "of." Thankfully enough, this distraction left her still enough the cameras to get some clear shots of her shocked, cat's eyes, expression as Mr. S smiled genially next to her.

Soon after the reveal, Mr. S stepped away from the podium, letting Schwarz take the mic as he walked off with Blake. Schwarz's droning voice was barely heard over the crow of questioning reporters as she informed them that "Mr. Schnee will not be taking any questions at the moment" and the reporters pretended that they couldn't hear her and kept shouting questions. Mr. S walked away from the podium as Blake and the security bots followed along robotically behind him. He was only five yards away from the doors when he tilted his head the slightest bit upward and was greeted with yet another world shattering reveal just as a particularly enthusiastic reporter managed to capture his attention at that critical moment, quieting all the the clamor around her.

Mr. S turned back to the questioning reporter, breaking every protocol about public relations as he did so. One must forgive him for the lapse, however, for any memories about press release etiquette were, at the moment, drowned out by the singular thought of. 'Holy crap! Somebody broke the moon!'

"Mr. Schnee!" the faunus reporter said, adjusting her reporter's hat as her tail wagged behind her. "Eva Landa from the FRA, Atlas Branch" she introduced herself.

"Yes?" Mr. S asked, with a slightly annoyed expression, realizing from the sudden quiet that it was too late to turn back, all the while occupying himself with the new thoughts of 'Was that there this entire time?' and 'How!? How did I miss that!?', partially to keep himself distracted from the pit weighing on his stomach as he awaited the reporter's question, his heartbeat accelerating as his head cleared and he focused, readying him for the most horrible, difficult questions imaginable as his mind rushed to come up with the best, most meaningless response to every contingency.

"What do you say to the allegations that you have had dealings with the White Fang?" She asked, tugging at the inside edge of her blazer with one hand to keep it from flapping in the wind as she reached out her other hand to record his response with her scroll.

Mr. S was, at first, puzzled to hear this question on account of having already answered it by virtue of the entire speech he'd just given. Instinctively, however, he caught on to the intent of the question: that was, to trip him up and have him say something stupid and newsworthy. Nervously rushing, Mr. S blinked as he scoured his mind for something, anything, that could act as an answer without causing the apocalypse.

'Uhh,'

"Fake News," He threw out, with all the confidence of the universe behind him.

* * *

 **NTTN**


	9. Chapter 9

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.**

 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

 **Interlude**

"Sir, we should go," Weiss registered Schwarz's words, turning her head about just in time to train her gaze on the two of them as they discreetly turned a corner behind one of the stone columns.

"Wait!" Weiss managed to yell just as they walked out of sight, pushing her own chair back as she strode quickly towards where she last saw them, shocking the rest of her team into action as they all stood from their respective seats to follow.

"Uhh, Weiss…" Yang asked just as Weiss turned the column "-what did he mean by 'She's a great listener!'" Yang quoted, pitching her voice into the faux familiar, joking tone Mr. S had taken not seconds earlier.

"How am I supposed to know?" Weiss asked, pushing aside the hanging tapestry and frantically inspecting the featureless wall before her. "He must've taken one of the secret passageways!" Weiss grumbled in frustration as she pressed her body flush to the wall, feeling along the marble surface with the tips of her fingers.

"You guys have secret doors?" Ruby asked with a fascinated excitement.

"Where does this passage lead?" Yang asked with a threatening tone.

"I don't know! There's a whole network of passages throughout the entire castle, he could be anywhere!" Weiss responded, backing away from the wall with a dejected expression.

"Do you have any idea where he's likely to go?" Blake asked, trying to be helpful.

"His office!" Weiss sprang up after a second of thought, running further down the marble corridor as Blake rushed to follow her, wide eyed at the prospect of meeting with Mr. Schnee and endeavoring to be less helpful in the future.

* * *

Weiss paced before the locked office door, surrounded by her friends. Yang scowled, leaning by an anxious Blake as Ruby looked seriously off into a corner, her eyes flickering and her lips moving with silent whispers, deep in thought. The staccato clicks of Weiss's heels and the measured pace of her footsteps served as good an indicator of the time passed as the wall clock that had been staring down at them from above the office door for the past fifteen minutes.

"Uhh, Weiss…" Yang broke the silence, "are you sure he's going to be coming here?"

"Yes," Weiss responded curtly, still pacing before the office door.

"Well, how _sure_ are you?" Yang asked with an annoyed lilt to her voice, having taken the silent wait time to cool down and now angry that she was no longer angry enough to do something rash when Mr. Schnee showed his face.

"I'm eighty percent sure, Yang," Weiss responded shortly, herself testy over the situation.

"Oh, and how sure are you about _that_ ," Yang responded quickly, knowing she shouldn't but deciding to tease the high strung heiress like it was a Tuesday.

"Twenty percent," Weiss responded with equal confidence, shocking Yang with the lack of eye rolling or annoyed yelling.

"Uh, what?" Yang asked, still trying to wrap her head around the matter. "You just said you were…"

"I'm twenty percent sure that I'm eighty percent sure. How much simpler could it get!? Now could you be...Quiet. For just a second?" Weiss said, on the verge of shouting as her voice echoed throughout the cavernous halls.

Yang pressed herself back against a wall with a cautious expression, deciding it might be best to save her personality until after Weiss was done having the epic boss battle with her father.

The silence reinstated itself for all of twenty seconds before receiving a timely lack-of-noise complaint from team RWBY's namesake.

"Ahahah!" Ruby broke the silence with a light laugh.

"What." Weiss asked through her teeth, hackles raised and barely holding herself together at the sudden outburst. She knew Ruby wouldn't ever laugh _at_ her, not with any ill intention, anyway, but it still grained at her psyche in her current state...she really just needed an excuse to yell, Weiss concluded, trying to ignore the lead pumping through her heart and weighing it down as she tried to find out what was going on.

She'd just kissed Blake on live television and he'd just laughed it off, suddenly all but declared himself pro-faunus, tied her to his ruined legacy, whipped up the atlas elite and anti-faunus sentinet all across the continent while he was at it, and he did all of this just as she went public with the fact that she was dating Blake...Blake, the faunus!

So, in light of this, "What could be so funny?" Weiss asked, glaring down at Ruby who was leaning against a wall for support, she was laughing so hard.

"Her, ahahaha, Blake's ears," Ruby laughed, pointing a finger up at the two protrusions wiggling about atop Blake's head.

"What?" Weiss asked, her anger flushing itself down and her worries dissipating for the moment as she figured it was best to leave behind all memory of her father for the moment.

"She's an excellent listener, don't you get it!" Ruby replied, still laughing. "She has four ears, _and_ she's really quiet all the time! Ahahahaha, It just works on so many levels," Ruby said, somehow laughing loudly and softly at the same time as she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

Weiss blinked and shook her head, turning away from her teammate while internally labeling that moment as the stupidest thing she'd lived through in her entire life so far. In fact, she was certain that was the stupidest thing she would live through _ever_.

"Ms. Schnee," A commanding voice echoed through the hall, turning the heads of team RWBY towards the approaching figure of Glynda Goodwitch as she headed the approaching group of herself, Ozpin, and Qrow.

"Oh, Ms. Goodwitch, Professor Ozpin," Weiss stood at attention, nodding her head to each respective figure.

"Uncle Qrowww!" Ruby yelled jumping up to tackle the remaining figure in a full body hug.

"Hey there, kiddo," Qrow responded with a slow chuckle, rolling with the impact and lightly shaking the excitable girl hanging off his arm.

"What are you doing here?" Yang asked.

"We're just here to break into Mr. Schnee's office," Qrow said.

"Oh, ha ha," Weiss threw back with a glare, "even if you could get past the biometrics, I doubt you could ever convince such upstanding indi-" CLICK a sound interrupted Weiss as Glynda stood before the metal doors, holding out her glowing riding crop to point at the door.

CLICK, another, softer, click resonated from the internal mechanisms of the door as Glynda twitched her wrist, pushing the metal halves inward

"What are you doing?" Weiss asked, managing to sound indignant and deferential in the same sentence.

"We're trying to find the big S," Qrow said with a casual drawl as he strode in through the doors, "word on the street says this is the place to find him," Qrow said with a pointed glance at Weiss.

"This-this is illegal!" Weiss said as the rest of her team flowed around her to get in through the doors.

"The rules can get...bent in strange situations," Ozpin explained as he strode into the office, looking back at her with an understanding look.

"But, but, we can't just burst into the office! He's not even here!" Weiss implored.

"And that's likely to be the case if he sees us loitering outside of it," Ozpin replied.

"It's sti-" Weiss began.

"You coming or not?" Yang added, looking back through the door as she strolled in.

"Ugh, fine," Weiss slouched, steeping in through the doors. It's not as if things were likely to get any more nonsensical than they already were.

* * *

 **NTTN**


	10. Chapter 10

**I'm looking for editors by the way, so if you think you can help improve the quality of the story and want to decrease the time between updates, feel free to message me.**

 **I'm also posting this story on Space Battles. com, feel free to look it up there since I'm more active in the comments section over there.**

* * *

The soft pads of shoes and the mechanical whirr of robotic limbs filled the empty hallway as they headed back towards the office. At the head of the group, Mr. S drank in the silence as he anxiously awaited the stream of yelling, panic and bad news he'd grown accustomed to, the silence teasing at him as he tensed and seemed to hold his breath endlessly, just waiting for the first complaint.

He caught himself about to stumble, his footing suddenly unsure as a deep exhaustion soaked into his body, all of this compounded with a sudden dour note that rung about in his brain.

Far too quickly, he felt his patience withering under the pressure. Claustrophobia set in under the now stifling warmth of the building, unable to gather his thoughts as he readied to turn away any accusation even as the primary focus of his thoughts lay in pointless agonizing about the moon.

In either case, despite every rational thought and reason that told him otherwise, he felt the instinct to act. He had to do _something_ after all, especially in the increasingly hounding weight of responsibility he'd put upon himself as a leader.

At once he focused himself on this goal once more, using every ounce of will he could muster to draw his thoughts away from the hanging reality of the moon as he tried to figure out what to do.

Instantly, his mind looked back to every archetype of a leader he could recall, and, thinking on it for a moment, as he bathed in the depressed silence that came in from every direction, he knew...it was time to make an epic speech.

Of course, he wasn't under any impression that a speech would fix everything, hence why he knew he had to make an _epic_ speech. Not a mere recitation of hollow words, but the profoundest expression of the purest articles that make up the heart. A speech who's rhetoric was ordained by the essense of the soul, and all the more powerful for it. A speech who's words carried the power to uplift the fallen, mend wounded spirits, and end racism. This form of epic speech, Mr. S had never seen outside of battlefields and the third acts of football movies, but he knew it was the speech he needed to give right now.

Bracing himself he turned slightly to the side to see team RWBY pacing behind him, all with neutral expressions as Blake and Weiss walked along, almost dazed as their partners helped to almost push them along.

"So…" he began, nothing coming to mind other than the thought that 'So,' was a terrible way to begin a speech, "good job team, great job out there," he rushed through, quickly turning back to hide his cringing expression.

'Genius, absolutely Genius.'

Surprisingly, this didn't elicit a response from Weiss, which he elected to take as good news, even as the continual silence set an ominous tone in the air.

"If I may be so bold, sir," Schwarz tentatively breached the silence after a moment, "was it wise to say what you said about Blake's departure from the white fang?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Mr. S replied.

"Well, it was...untrue, sir," Schwarz said.

"Lying is ok when it's beneficial, Schwarz," Mr. S explained, circling his hand up as he did so.

"No- I just mean, it might be troublesome since the white fang now has a means of disproving you and hurting your image," Schwarz said, politely omitting a "further" from her sentence.

"I doubt they have the means," he answered easily, "they can deny what I said, yes, but providing proof is another matter considering that they aren't renowned for their internal record keeping; even if they were, their files aren't exactly available for auditing, so any proof they present will be exactly as verifiable as what they wrote on toilet paper yesterday," he said, feeling a lightness come over his chest as he finally had the chance to explain his reasoning, drawing comfort from that familiar act and structure, as well as the surety it seemed to give his actions.

"Ok, ok, wait," Weiss interrupted, shaking her head as if clearing something off of it as she strode ahead to match Mr. S in the hallway, the rest of RWBY following behind her as if tied to her with a rubber band. "You're telling me that you actually _planned_ this? That what you did on that stage was the result of rational thought? That you aren't planning to admit to some heretofore unknown drug addiction scandal and take back what you've just said?" Weiss clarified, a steady tension in her voice.

"You seem upset," Mr. S analyzed.

"Guh! Bah! Wha! Geehuhh!..." Wess clenched her fists as the distilled unamusement of many a lady before her seemed to express itself in her tiny body.

Weiss calmed, almost instantly, as Blake's hand reached to touch her own, saying "Yes, we're upset," as Weiss nodded in agreement, electing to focus on her breathing exercises rather than waste any more breath yelling.

'Breath in...and out,' Weiss recited mentally, focusing herself. She could remain calm, by getting angry she was only truly hurting herself.

'There!' She thought, preparing herself as she readied to stand impassive before even the worst condescensions and lies her father could muster.

"Well, is there anything I could do to help you feel better?" Mr. S asked in a genuine tone, knowing that he was supposed to be Hitler, but electing to default to his own personality for the time being.

"Huhhhh," Weiss inhaled, exhaling, "fwhooooo," as she closed her eyes and a shudder of rage ran up her body. Blake, for her part, valiantly held off the looks of agony as Weiss's hand suddenly turned into a vice grip around her own.

"No," Weiss answered after a moment to collect herself.

And then, there was a calm. Not merely a silence, but an understanding truce between both sides that nothing would be gained from arguing any longer.

Of course, Mr. S, despite his wearied state, had to help make it better.

"Are you sure?" He asked. "I mean, the Faunus Outreach Committee seemed-"

"Are you serious!" Weiss shouted, taking a slight pause to mentally organize all her complaints. "Not only do you decide to risk everything and put us in the spotlight, you thought it was a great idea to stir up the other families against us like this? I mean, none of this even helps you!? You could literally have disappointed me less by doing nothing, but you put in the work! And what do you think you're doing trying to stick Blake as the head of the Faunus Outreach Committee?" She gestured with a hand towards Blake. "What even _is_ the Faunus Outreach Committee!?" Weiss yelled, abruptly stopping as she took the grammar mistake as a sign that she'd gone too far before quickly returning to her less than calm breathing exercises.

"Well...Mr. S fell back, still stinging from the tirade as he scrambled to explain himself, "Ideally, It's meant to be a Committee that," he paused a moment, thinking, "reaches...out...to the Faunus community."

For a brief moment, Weiss felt her heart stop, but Blake took that moment to fill in.

"I won't be joining your Committee," she threw back, keeping Weiss's attention on her. "And there's no such thing as a 'Faunus Community', we're a diverse group with our own traditions."

"See, that's one stereotype corrected already, you're a natural for this job," Mr. S threw back cheerfully, still unable to unscramble the day's events as they rushed to flood into his addled mind.

"I said I'm not taking the job," Blake replied, regaining her confidence as the fears of arrest grew distant with time and hazy against all that had taken place since.

"Oh, that's just nerves talking," Mr. S said, having run out of the mental energy to reply with anything other than stock phrases and repetecious wording.

"No, It's not," Blake said with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, then I suppose you'd be able to provide a _reason_ as to you wouldn't want to head to committee?" Mr. S said, asking as if he'd just won a court case with that argument.

"Because I don't want to work for someone like you," Blake said, almost questioning herself even through the direct tone of her sentence.

"Well, don't think of it so much as 'working for me' then as much as…" he took a moment, "a third party advisory role in exchange for payment."

"I don't want your money," Blake said.

"Well, don't think of it as 'getting paid' then as much as...gaining the ability to direct funds towards worthy causes, among other benefits."

"What benefit could I get by working with you?" Blake asked, curious as to what the answer would be, even as she understood that she'd never understand it.

"Well, despite my speech, I'm sure that a large portion of the world still connects you with the White Fang," he said with a dry tone, "and doing some good, even with me as an affiliate, will help you to distance yourself from that image."

"And what 'good', would I be doing exactly?" She asked, surprising herself with the not too-insignificant level of curiosity she'd held behind that question, the feeling made all the stranger as a sudden awareness that she was holding a conversation with Mr. Schnee came over her.

It wasn't any strangeness in the conversation that surprised her, rather it was the relative normalcy of it considering who she was talking too. Most likely, as she would later analyze, this feeling was due to the fact that despite all her imagenings about the fall of the SDC, and her occasional musings about the mad cackle parties it's head must've held, she'd never imagined him...talking, to her or anyone for that matter.

Mr. S, to his credit, was quick to answer her question. "Well, you'd know what to do better than I, wouldn't you? I mean, you certainly have more than a passing interest in the welfare of Faunus kind."

"If you're so eager to do 'good', then why not hire someone more qualified? Why ask me? I'm a student and I'm focused on being a huntress," Blake asked, tentative curiosity blooming as every exchange seemed intensely more interesting than the last.

"Blake, it's a committee," he pointed out with a half chuckle as he remembered his own experiences, "you're not expected to do _actual_ work."

"So it's a sham," Blake observed as everything suddenly fell into place, not feeling so much disappointed as...vindicated? Although there was a strange hollowness to the feeling.

"If that's what you choose to make of it," he answered smoothly. "It's up to you, in the end, if it ends up being a bunch of tea parties or if it becomes something you're proud to look back on."

"So, I'd have actual power as the head of this organization," Blake said, still reeling from the whiplash of this conversation. It didn't seem like he was playing a joke, so it still demanded her attention, if only to figure out what it was he was scheming for.

"Yes," He replied with a sure certainty.

Blake for her part, didn't react beyond a bewildered blink. "And I'd have complete independence from the SDC?" She asked, a soft intensity to her voice, only held back from getting closer to Mr. S by the fact that Weiss walked in between them, giving the occasional curious glance to Blake as Ruby and Yang silently watched the exchange like it was a tennis match.

"Well…" Mr. S said with a hesitant voice. He was trying to do the right thing, and this was the best plan he'd come up with in whatever time he'd had, but he wasn't ready to give a complete stranger that much power, no matter how tragic a backstory she had.

"Nevermind," Blake said with a superior smile, even as a dour tone weighed on her voice. "I won't be taking the job, so don't strain yourself," she said before Weiss's eyes shined at the sight ahead and she gripped Blake's hand harder before leading her team ahead towards the office door that shone out at them.

Mr. S watched as the team strode ahead, watching as Weiss whispered sternly to the rest of the group, coaching them about something perhaps.

Schwarz only kept her pace, working furiously at her scroll as she thought through every reason why Mr. Schnee would have done what he did, every reason why his actions made sense, and only felt deeper guilt and uncertainty when she couldn't come up with a single one.

Taking her breath, she opened her mouth to question, but, after a thought, merely held her silent frustration as she reprimanded herself for her public questioning, even as her heart fell at the apparent senselessness of the answers she'd been given.

Mr. S stepped through the softly flowing air and into his office, fully appreciating the warm, yellow light that filled it as he walked in. Quickly, he noticed the semi-circle of chairs that curved around the front of his desk as well as the figures that sat in them, staring at him.

Ozpin, Glynda and Qrow sat in the leftmost chairs, while RWBY sat in formation on the opposite side, looking exhausted. Winter stood in the left corner as she, like everyone else in the room, stared at him.

Mr. S walked past the gap in between Ruby and Qrow, followed by Schwarz as he turned in front of his desk and looked back at the group of people before him. Schwarz stood beside him, placing her scroll away before looking back up to stare at him.

Mr. S, after a brief period of thought, realized that everyone was staring at him.

His first instinct, one which he barely held back, was to look out at the staring crowd and say 'What?' in as casual a way as possible.

Instead, he looked out at the gathered throng and said, "Yes?" in as unceremonious a fashion as possible.

There was a pause as everyone waited. Team RWBY, for their part, merely leaned back against their chairs with various looks of exhaustion and self pity.

"I am shocked and surprised," Qrow said, breaking the silence.

"Well, that's getting rather wearisome, so I certainly hope you come out of it soon," Mr. S replied, with a tinge of annoyance in his voice. "No matter what you may think I believe, I've no problem with people of either race," he continued, hedging his bets on the fact that Mr. Schnee seemed like one of those high-brow racists that prefered poetic prejudice to street side rants.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Qrow blinked back after an amazed silence, "I was just expecting more coughing and hacking when you referred to faunus as people."

"Well, I doubt my history would point to anything that would suggest I'd degrade my vocabulary with bad logic over the matter," Mr. S said, feeling the exhaustion weighing further and further on him as every bit of energy he tried to muster seemed to unravel at an accelerating pace. Really, all he could have ever wanted at this point was some sleep.

"I'm sorry, what are you trying to say?" Qrow said, having genuine difficulty understanding as he swayed back into his chair and tried not to slur his words.

"I'm saying I don't have any problems calling faunus people," Mr. S said curtly, realizing he should just kick them out and sleep but feeling an instinct to finish this stupid conversation for some reason.

"I'm sorry," Qrow said breathily as he half burped, pausing a long moment as he tried to regain his place in the sentence, "could you say that again?" He asked, still in disbelief as his general drunkenness exposed itself more and more.

"I said I don't have any problems calling faunus people," Mr. S replied, leaning back against his desk as his legs buzzed with exhaustion and his lids began to feel heavy over his eyes.

"You know…" Qrow paused, as if struggling to come up with what words to say while counting something out on his hands, "if I had a million lien for everytime you said that, I'd be a millionaire."

* * *

 **I've got another RWBY fanfiction as well. It's a "The Games We Play X ONE PUNCH MAN" Fanfiction called "The Rights We Fred."**

 **Also, new short Stories on my website, FantasticTales . N E T .**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

* * *

On the whole, if one were to undertake the presumptuous task of assigning to them a character, the people of Remnant could quite comfortably be described as Somber and Introspective.

The introspectiveness, they shared with every being which had gained self awareness. Their Somber nature, on the other hand, has tentatively been attributed to the grimm.

Of course, their peculiar circumstances, and resulting mood, makes them stand out in this respect, and they, despite lacking any points of reference, are sometimes aware of this.

As an example, an oft quoted and occasionally misattributed epigram by an anonymous Mantel humorist goes as follows:

Remnans, Remnans, of every nation

Don't you find it an odd arrangement,

That despite living where soulless monsters would plunge us to damnation,

At the slightest wilt or wane of contentment,

We yet insist on feeling quite badly of our situation.

Meant as a soft rebuke against Mantel's, largely unsuccessful, campaigns of emotion suppression, it was shared quite extensively in underground resistance circles throughout Solitas, and, over time, it had become a sort of tradition to respond to the statement with the sarcastic, "yeah, nothing gets people to cheer up like the threat of violence if they don't." The subsequent eye rolling was optional, but nonetheless strictly adhered to.

The epigram, and resulting traditions, travelled far beyond Mantel, however, spreading throughout the nations, succeeding the war and, eventually, Mantel itself, becoming ingrained into the cultural fabric of post war Remnant where it continued to act as a contrasting backdrop to the latest of the strangely hopeful "color" generation that followed, which had yet to get the hope beaten out of them.

Ruby Rose was part of that latest "hopeful" generation which, having yet to get the hope beaten out of them, strayed in some respects from the near constantly somber mood that had preceded them.

And Ruby Rose, an especially hopeful person among her hopeful generation, stood out greatly from the planetary outlook which weighed on Remnant; being a generally positive person by nature, she was characterised by her near unbounded optimism, kind heart, and the ability to see the best in people, as well as the strength to look for best of any situation. Moreover, beyond the effect this attitude might have had on her actions, it also went to great lengths to shape her philosophy: for she was one of the countless thousands who had been swept up in the good feelings of new government following the war, having given herself entirely over to the nigh utopian ideals of Republicanism and Self Governance.

For these reasons it had long been assumed that Ruby Rose was the second most hopeful person on Remnant, when, in fact, she was the fourth; in this particular instance however, that had been enough. For, in between Qrow saying something he shouldn't have and Mr. S preparing to say something he shouldn't, she had become the first to notice, or, more likely, the first person to accept the nature of, the glowing graph behind Mr. S.

"Um, Mr. Schnee, I think your company's getting better!" Ruby announced softly, pointing a steady finger to the stabilizing line graph behind the man.

Mr. S twisted around, tired eyes focusing on the warmly glowing yellow of the graph as everyone else moved pointedly to stare at the screenf.

To his credit, Mr. S replied quickly and confidently, turning back around with a self-assured swagger and saying, "Of course It's getting better," with a barely restrained chuff of amusement.

Immediately, nine pairs of eyes converged on him, awaiting an explanation.

Mr. S, meanwhile, stayed silent, praying internally that the stock wouldn't fall again. Partially, he did this out of a lack of any true answers to give, mostly, he stayed on account of the overcoming lethargy which, at this point, had slowed his reactions down to the extent that every question, particularly the unstated ones, seemed an intractable mess to comprehend.

Schwarz was only a moment ahead of him, however, eyes sparkling open in wonderment as, for her, everything seemed to fall back into it's natural order and the world was began to make sense again.

"Of course!" She all but shouted with a giddy excitement, compelled to speak by the overwhelming lightness of feeling which had overtaken her. She almost laughed: "I thought you'd given into sentimentalism with your faunus outreach idea, but, by explicitly not backtracking on the Blake issue, you've managed to convey stability! And you've even pushed the white fang issue out of the news," she said with an almost rambling, completely relieved tone exclusive to the pardoned, nearly slouching as a smile attempted to draw itself across her face and her eyes seemed to wander lazily across a world that was no longer attempting to crush her beneath its weight.

Following her eyes, everyone could see the banner running across the bottom of the muted screen, reading: "Faunus outreach, what does it mean?" And, beyond the ominous looking headshot of Blake still hanging in the corner of the image, all memory of the white fang seemed, for the moment, absent.

"That wasn't quite all of it, but you've managed to do a well enough job going over the broad strokes," Mr. S replied in a conversational tone, turning to face Schwarz and smiling as some noticeable amount of alertness seemed to pop back into his features.

Schwarz looked up at him with absolute wonderment, as if sustaining herself on the words and praise of the man, as well as on the fact that the impending ruin he'd been plotting towards all night had been averted to an extent.

 **Beep, Beep. Beep, Beep!**

Of course, her further wonderment of as well as quality time with her boss would have to wait, as Mr. S turned back and, once again, fished his scroll from his pocket; looking down at the screen, he could see a picture of an angry looking mustachioed fellow underlined with the name, Sonnig Nachrichten.

'Huh, so this _does_ show names,' Mr. S thought, picking up the call in the regular fashion before putting the scroll to his ear...and pulling it sharply back just as quickly.

The indistinct, static-muffled sounds of yelling spread throughout the room; a half garbled sentence of "SLANDER!...MY STATION!..." managed to make it out before Mr. S regained the wherewithal to lower the sound, putting the phone back against his ear as he wearily leaned back against the desk.

Mr. S sat there for a long moment, seeming all the time as if he were on the verge of getting a word in, yet always too late to capitalize on the moment.

As it was, he spent the next several moments keeping from nodding off and responding to the occasional pause with a monosyllabic, "Yeah," and, of course, the occasional, "of course," which was, of course, accompanied with unnecessary head nodding, of course.

All the while, Mr. S seemed to age in real time as the tiredness beneath his eyes grew and ane furrow in his brows deepened, his hair seeming to wilt as the fluorescent light glistened off of the white strands.

Qrow for his part, grew tired of the exceeding boredom that had overtaken the place. Turning to the TV, he, once again, unmuted the device. Not because he couldn't lip read what the anchors were saying, but because he couldn't lip read easily while drunk, and, as has already been established, he was bored.

"...this be an attempt to-?"

Again, Schwarz muted the device, remote held out towards and glare locked on the offending Qrow. Despite her greatest instinct, Schwarz held her silence, careful not disturb the talking Mr. S, who's scowl had etched itself deeper onto hi frustrated expression at the sound of the telvision.

Qrow held his own silence, as well, but he wasn't one to back down.

"...recently secured Mr. Polendina's-"

Schwarz held the remote out tensely, as if she might be able to make the muting stick by gripping onto the device tighter as she ground her teeth and dared him to try it again.

Qrow didn't hesitate for a moment.

"...Stock optinons-"

Again, the click of buttons.

"... _has_ stabilized, although how much of this can be attributed to child company assets…"

Schwarz moved to raise her hand once more until she felt a very light hand pressing on her arm. Looking over, she could see the annoyed face of Mr. Schnee looking at her, as if saying "just leave it."

Annoyed, Schwarz left off, leaving the remote to rest on the tabletop even as she glared daggers at Qrow through the news broadcast which now televised throughout the room.

Mr. S was, himself, not doing much better, taking on that look which all men seemed to develop whenever they were, by some tenuous obligation, forced to discuss subjects they didn't care about in the slightest.

As the one sided conversation dragged, and the television blared, and the people stared, Mr. S found a sickness bubbling up in his stomach, feeling the reality around him turn poisonous as every additional second he found himself staring at the antiseptic floor of the office room only reminded him of the ever deepening exhaustion which had been setting in ever since the press conference. And, it was, at this point, with the good news of stabilizing stock behind him, and the dreary weight of the day weighing upon him, that he realized just how little he cared about the small voice yelling into his ear. And, as if guided by fate itself, it was just at this moment that the voice on the other end inflected and paused, for the first time asking a question it actually expected an answer to.

Mr. S, having not learned about the days lessons, or perhaps just not caring about them, decided to answer the question with the nearest thing at hand...the truth.

"Well, Mr. Sonnig," he began, a hint of calming serenity falling over his expression, "it _was_ pretty fake."

* * *

The longer she dwelt on the issue, the more it bothered Weiss how angry she'd been of late.

More than that, it concerned her how, despite her best efforts, she couldn't even say how it came to be like this.

How!? How did she come to have so little control over her life?

She seethed as distant memories of her childhood training resurfaced like old wounds, the hazy, numbing chill as she learned to look through the facade everyone around her carried, the fiery recoil as she learned to hate them for it, to hate herself.

'It should all have been over by now,' she tormented herself with the thought, recalling her blissful fantasies of how she would have rebuked her father's so called "punishment" of disinheritance, shown him how little he ever meant to her and left him behind, forever! She would have taken her past, everything he'd taught her, all the hate and anger he'd pushed upon her, everything he'd warped her into, and thrown it back in his face!

She could _finally_ have been happy, she remembered with a hardening gaze, not merely content for whatever brief moment she could gather, but, for the rest of her life, deeply and truly happy.

Yet here she sat, with a perfect posture and dignified expression, and looked on with a calculating analysis, trying to understand how it was she'd so completely lost control over even this small measure of defiance against her father.

Subtly, she turned her eyes upon him, not showing on her face the slightest portion of the tumultuous rage that burned. Yet before her eyes could land upon him, an act which she knew would only further fuel her anger, a sulking figure in a black dress passed over her periphery.

Here, she calmed, consciously focusing as she counted every rise and fall of her chest. 'There are things outside of your anger,' she thought, remembering the phrase after a moment's searching pause.

'Blake feels worse than you ever could,' the thought struck out as her eyes focused on Blake, a pang of guilt ringing painfully out as she struggled to maintain her mask.

'I should hold her hand,' the thought came mechanically.

Weiss, in her exhausted state, for once followed her own advice without the usual hesitancy and second guessing analysis she experienced in all matters relating to Blake.

"Blake," Weiss whispered, speaking crisply, yet so softly, at the point where Blake had taught her to speak their secrets and she could scarcely hear herself.

Blake's ears twitched, through her eyes still locked on the tiling ahead, focused in thought.

"Blake," Weiss spoke again, careful not to speak any louder even as she focused an importance into her voice.

Blake turned her eyes to her, as if to ask "what?"

"Hold my hand," Weiss all but mouthed, stretching her arm out and sensing a lightness come over her guilt as she saw the amused smile which drew itself across Blake's features.

Weiss returned a reassuring smile of her own, whispering, "everything's going to be alright, I promise" as she felt Blake's hand wrap around her own.

And that was just the issue.

Weiss could feel the warmth of Blakes hand in her own….and that was all she could feel. The anger still flared, untempered within her. She could feel a sickening guilt coming on as she searched for and failed to find that calmness which always came when she was with Blake.

Turning away her eyes, she tried to remember the feeling even if she couldn't find it.

Still, she could still only feel the clouding anger, having to force her eyes away from the object of her hate, barely managing to succeed in doing just that when her father's voice spoke out clearly once again, bursting out from the background noise of tenebreous agreement it had faded into as Mr. S spoke, "Well, it _was_ pretty fake," and Weiss found her eyes focusing on him before she could think to stop them.

All her guilt and inhibitions burned away as her thoughts, once again, focused fully on her father.

And it was here, as she saw her father almost shying away from the yelling scroll speaker, seemingly struggling to hold back a wince of discomfort even as a joking mirthfulness played at his lips, that she understood what it was that had made her extraordinarily angry.

This man, he didn't look like her father, not in the slightest. The exaggerated, upward curl of his lips whenever something amused him, the softer, downward curve of his eyes, the more relaxed round of his shoulders; these minute though present changes, though unnoticeable to anyone without her skills and familiarity with him, they changed him completely.

It's as if he disappeared into someone else just in time to escape me! She thought, squeezing her hand with growing rage as she stared for an indeterminable amount of time at the distorted visage before her, trying to make sense of the nonsensical.

Perhaps, she thought, his growing tiredness was the cause. But, the fact that she could read him well enough to tell that he was tired was strange enough in itself.

Despite her anger, Weiss focused on this new discovery and stilled, analyzing her father's face with wonder, as if mesmerized by all the new expressions which seemed to be playing out across it.

She watched with an unconcealed interest as he, suddenly, stopped responding to the short feinting pauses that seemed to demand he give some short and satisfying answer. She could see his eyes begin to harden as the exhaustion buried itself and a thousand invisible switches seemed to switch in unison.

Weiss felt her heart still, feeling as if someone were pouring ice water through her veins as, looking forward with widening eyes, she once again saw her father in the man. She saw those thousand, minute, expressions turn in unison to once again rebuild the unchanging, subtle look of disdain Mr. Schnee always seemed to wear.

Weiss gripped Blakes hand all the tighter, all for her girlfriend's sake, of course. Blake might be scared or something.

* * *

Mr. S felt something change about him. His face suddenly formed strangely into some inconceivable expression, and his body locked rigidly into those alien memories of a different body.

Beyond that, however, he just _felt_ different, in a way that should only have been possible by changing reality itself. If he had to describe it, he felt as if he'd suddenly found himself in an empty and strange room, with all the worries of the world seeming impossible to care about.

Yet….he was still here, standing in the office, listening to some overly self-important news paper guy yell at him through a phone.

"Sonnig…." Mr. S spoke softly and slowly, as if even the idea of interruption was preposterous. Still, despite speaking with a voice no louder than a conversational phrases, he surprised himself with how completely it filled the room with its vociferous mass.

Mr. Nachrichten, for all the miles he was separated from the conversation, and for all the static and distortion that stood in between their conversation, must have been spared none of the impact the voice carried for, shortly after Mr. S spoke, his voice quickly trailed away into a slow nothingness.

"...remind me," he spoke, breaking a tense silence, "I seem to have forgotten," he continued, putting no little amount of dry amusement into his voice, "which of us is dependent on whom?"

This, Mr. S spoke with a deliberate slowness he'd never been used to, watching as the entire room seemed to have caught back on to his words, surprised at how easily he'd faded into the background before whereas now, his every word seemed to demand attention, not for whatever message it conveyed, but for the simple fact that he spoke it.

The voice on the other side was quick to respond, layering their words with a thick sense explanation.

Mr. S held a long silence, as if the thought to respond had yet to capture his attention.

After a moment, he did respond. "Really?" he said this, again, with that dry amusement. "I could have been fooled," he stated, dangerously.

The voice spoke out once more, somehow managing to speak even faster until the words became a stream of uncoordinated expressions of regret.

"I don't _care_ what you control," Mr. S interrupted, continuing, "I want it fixed."

Again, the voice was quick to comply, speaking resolutely in its promises and questions.

"Don't 'fix' the damage, make it look good. By next week, I want the ball to be a distant memory and I want Blake Belladonna's name to be the best thing since dust!...Fine! Put me through," Mr. S said, accepting the offer and quickly stopping himself from showing a surprised face at who he'd just been connected to.

Carried on by that strange instinct which seemed to be lofting him, Mr. S spoke on, confidently ignoring whatever questions arose in favor of acting.

"Well, you can start by announcing, unequivocally, that Ms. Belladonna never worked with the White Fang when they were committing terrorist acts. I don't want anymore of this, 'weighing the evidence,' nonsense, Mr. S spoke, sardonically gesturing his free hand.

"Ha, ha!" An abrupt and nervous laughter shot out from the television screen, demanding the attention of everyone in the room as the news anchor stood center stage on the screen, pressing a shaking hand tightly against her earpiece. "Oh, we, uh, regret to inform the audience that we have, made an error in our reporting," she spoke, taking a quick pause as she gathered herself. "New evidence has come to light showing that Blake Belladonna has had NO AFFILIATION with any terrorist factions of the White Fang."

"And mention how she left the organization early," Mr. S added,

"And, our source indicates that she had, in fact, broken off all ties with the white fang prior to any assumptions of worldwide terrorist activities," the anchor continued, keeping any nervous laughter to a minimum.

"And take that ghastly portrait off the screen!" Mr. S continued, watching the ominous looking portrait of blake fade quietly away in real time. "Ok, now replace it with a better picture….what do you mean you can't find one where she's smiling?"

Meanwhile, the anchor continued to stretch her words, managing to say nothing as she anxiously waited for instructions and tried not to say anything that hadn't been said before. Meanwhile, a banner underneath her scrolled past, reading, "Blake Belladonna: Not A Terrorist."

"Ok, that's satisfactory," Mr. S said, adding, "for now." Looking at the time on the tv screen, he saw that it was already two a.m. and he, once again, became acutely aware of how tired he'd become, the struggle to keep that out of his voice only compounding his exhaustion. Shaking off his unsteadiness he quickly listed out his remaining instructions: "Keep the news cycle clear of the white fang and interview anyone who'll be helpful to my message. Feel free to interview some dissenting voices as well, but make sure that they look insane….Yeah, send the narrative out to all the networks and…" he paused here, listening to the softly spoken words on the other end.

"I don't know! Just talk about how nice my jacket looked until you do, then! And make sure to say the stock is doing better." he threw out before quickly hanging up, desperate to finish the conversation.

"And, did you notice, by the way," the anchor now turned to her partner, "how radiant Jacques Schnee looked in his new suit?"

"Yes," the co-anchor nodded, solemnly closing her eyes, "it looked almost brand new, and….I think it had a matte finish as well?"

"I think it might've been…"

All the while, as they spoke, the stock information for SCHN soared up on the television screen.

Several moments later, the screen behind Mr. S did the same, moving into a steady climb as the room tinged green once more.

Schwarz was gladdened to see this, realizing fully the true genius of Mr. Schnee's plan as, by not panicking and waiting until now to direct the news, he'd given the impression that the resulting narrative occurred naturally and from free thought! A blush came to her cheeks as she remembered how she'd doubted him earlier.

Schwarz, simply enough, was content for the moment in realizing how instrumental Mr. Schnee had been in averting the crisis. Naturally, she successfully ignored the thought that he was also responsible for the crisis in the first place.

Mr. S sighed comfortably as he slipped the scroll back into his pocket, dreaming of, almost feeling, the airy coolness of mattress and blanket which awaited him. Turning his eyes towards the door that stood in between him and that dream, he could see the half questioning, half amazed glances circled between him and that door.

"...Yes?" he asked, desperately wanting to ignore them yet unable to leave without having finished this, once and for all.

Of all of them, Ruby was the first to act. "Buh, gwuh, buh, yuh," she stood up with convulsive gestures, hands flashing out with robotic movements as she tried to express the half horrified expression that colored her face, finally managing to utter, with the high tinged fury of youth, "YOU CONTROL THE NEWS!" sounding almost accusatory for all her questioning features.

Mr. S, aware that he, perhaps, should have refrained from controlling the news in sight of witnesses did the only thing his fog addled mind could think to do….push the problem onto somebody else.

It was thus he turned to Weiss, extended a confused hand, and said, "you didn't tell them this?" with a mixed voice of expectant disappointment.

* * *

"It never came up!" Weiss was quick to answer, anger flaring again, although, unlike before, this was a reactionary, fearful anger driven by the increasing claustrophobia that had built up ever since the change in Mr. S's expression. She almost stood up after answering, herself eager to leave, but was beaten to the punch.

"You control the news!" Ruby shot up from her chair, pointing an accusatory finger at Mr. S

"...Yes." Mr. S replied, not rearing back from the finger as he searched for the easiest answers that would end this conversation quickly, anxious to move on.

"Buh, bwuh…" Ruby gestured once more, "Isn't that illegal?" she blustered out, a genuine look of worry and confusion on her face.

"...No." Mr. S replied after a moment's thought.

"But….how?" Ruby asked with a weary voice, moving closer to Mr. S and asking as if she would die without the answer, as if she were still hoping that what she saw was actually something else.

"Well….I buy a lot of advertising on the networks, so it's in their best interest to keep me happy," Mr. S answered simply, not really caring to think more about the subject, or anything else for that matter.

"Buh, buh," Ruby muttered, and, despite her softening denials and queries, she could feel something tear inside of her as the truth of the situation fit horribly together like a puzzle before her eyes. She knew, right then, that Mr. S had spoken truth, and she could feel all hope leave her at the realization.

"Yes?" Mr. S said shortly at Ruby's continual phrasals, anxious to leave and always feeling as if he were on the verge of being able to do so.

Ruby shied back at this, turning back to see the rest of her team as they, especially Weiss, could be seen in discomfort and eager to leave.

Taking a deep breath, Ruby spoke with a mortified softness as she attempted to explain herself despite her own impending desire to leave. "I guess...I guess I just didn't see how something that took so much power away from the people could be possible in a government run 'by the people', is all," she spoke with a relaxed laughter, perhaps accepting for the first time that she'd be able to cope with her new reality.

"Ruby," Weiss burst in before Mr. S could answer, "that's what _representatives_ are for," she explained in a matter of fact manner, desperately hoping that they'd all just be able to leave now.

Ruby, for her part, had never realized how bad news could be made so much worse with the addition of cynicism. Of course, if the honest members of the Atlesian Congress had heard this, they would have been quick to dismiss such cynical outlooks and comfort the poor girl. Unfortunately, neither of them were present. Thus, it was that Ruby felt herself growing more hopeless despite having buried all her hope to extents that would intrigue Altesian stealth capabilities.

Let the reader note that: If Hell is the pain of being unable to love, then Super Hell is the unceasing awareness that, all along, you earnestly followed cable news.

* * *

Mr. S, for all his anticipation, wasn't one to leave someone in such a state.

"Hey, don't worry yourself too much about it kid," he said, resting his hand on the girl's shoulder while Qrow glared over at him, "the news is just a bunch of liars anyway."

Ruby nodded almost subconsciously at this, firmly endeavoring never toi trust liars in the future.

Satisfied with his work, Mr. S stepped forward to sprint to his bed when the desk phone rang cacophonously behind him.

"Schwarz, I thought you turned that off," Mr. S paused, turning slightly to look back at the desk as he suddenly found his hurry leaving him once the prospect of actually being able to leave became possible.

"I did," Schwarz answered, "It's an emergency call, it must be the-"

"Ok, pick it up," Mr. S sighed, resolving to get this last thing over with.

"Sir, I think-"

"Just pick it up Schwarz, I don't want to waste any more time on this," Mr. S said, letting a hint of the annoyance he'd been holding back creep into his voice.

"Yes, sir," Schwarz answered, clicking a button on the phone and projecting a desk sized hologram that flickered on above the desk.

Running his eyes over the image, Mr. S could see what looked to be the end of a table with a half circle of silhouetted figures stationed around it. In the center of the image, and thus at the head of the table, sat an old man with a lazy eye and grim features.

"Jacques Schnee," The man spoke slowly and with a great sense of gravity.

"Board director Schen," Mr. S replied, reading the nameplate stationed before the man.

"I-" Here the man paused, looking up from his papers for the first time and running his eyes out before him. With a sudden fury, a twitch of anger formed across his face before he spoke.

"Jacques Schnee," he paused, as if strgulling to find words important enough for the occasion, "am I to understand that you accepted this call with _guests_!" The man all but roared, with the severest expression coloring his tone.

Mr. S, almost feeling the wind of the man's voice through the screen, realized that he perhaps should never ignore Schwarz again.

Mr. S was quick to answer however, riding halfway in between his own sense as well as the sudden instinct that had come upon him to say, "Let's face it, this isn't the worst thing I've done today."

* * *

 **Fun Fact #02161: In the Original Draft, Mr. S was going to be a Poker Player/ Computer Engineer.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

* * *

The words came abruptly but not unexpectedly, a billowing crescendo which every preceding sentence seemed to, in some way, contribute towards. Spoken with such prefigured intent as they were, Mr. S was unsurprised when the board director, in his natural tone of self-important gravitas said, "...it is with this in mind that the board recommends you, resign your post," finishing smoothly and with the greatest delicacy, barely hesitating when it came time to say the critical words.

Mr. S released a heavy sigh under his breath, as if having exerted himself in listening patiently to the uninterrupted monologue of justification and the most valid reasons why he, "upon review of recent conduct was unfit to continue headship of the Schnee Dust Company and all incorporated assets." He then paused, processing the speech, and everyone seemed to dissemble at the unnaturally long silence that followed as Mr. S stood, fascinated by the ease with which the board director's attention seemed to float over Mr. Schnee's response to hand out a firing. He was being fired, he thought, disinterested...but that wasn't it.

Perhaps it was the surreal intensity of the situation, or maybe some aspect of himself which had changed, but Mr. S felt with unusual keenness the subtler features of the words spoken to him. And, through effortless application of this sudden awareness, Mr. S noted that, in the entirety of everything which had been said, nothing more had been asked of him than his voluntary resignation. Of course, it would have been quite bold of anyone to believe that any conclusions could be drawn from this bit of evidence, but Mr. S was feeling quite brave when he said…

"Board director Schen," gathering the attention of the room in that ever enchanting voice. "You speak quite confidently about resigning me, but it seems as if, and correct me if I'm in any way mistaken, that you _can't_ fire me."

Now _that_ , had gathered serious attention, and Schwarz noted the uneasy agitation that formed, Schen drawing an impassive mask as the figures surrounding him glanced furtively between him and Mr. Schnee.

Mr. S, for his part, noticed only the silence, but he wasn't oblivious to all of its subtleties. He could tell, for instance, that this was no ordinary silence, this kind of silence, he recognized,...was dangerous, the kind of silence found shortly before the mafia boss started to laugh and immediately after the same mafia boss slammed his hand down onto his desk.

With that figured, the only mystery left to Mr. S was to find out which side of the metaphorical desk he was sitting on. He pondered on this, resolving to hold his silence until a clear prompt to action could be discovered.

Schen was the first to break the silence in the end, blinking stiffly as he looked coldly out with his good eye.

"You should very well know, Company Head Schnee, that we are not within our rights to enforce a resignation as long as you maintain expected company performance metrics at the end of each quarter, and stock price is a very important metric." This, Schen said with an exaggerated sense of obeisance even as a hint of chiding snuck into his tone..

Mr. S rushed to assure them, "The company will continue nominal growth by the end of this quar-"

"Company Head Schnee," Schen interrupted in a manner which irked Mr. S's senses to hear, "do not play the fool," he said, adding with a hint of mirthfulness, "it does not suit you.

Do not forget that the board can control the stock nearly as well as you, and it would be a simple matter to ensure that the terms of your retirement are met at the end of this quarter, our asking for your resignation was a considerable favor on our part, to reward your years of excellent service, a favor I hope you will accept without the need to incur such a messy affair as that." Shen said with a bargaining tone.

"I would certainly hope the honorable director Schen would not resort to such blatant abuse of contractual powers," Mr. S spoke, more for the purpose of drawing out a response than as an answer to the question.

"Let us not get bogged down in the formalities of your situation," Shen spoke as if liable to forgetfulness, "the matter remains that you have overstepped your bounds as Company Head, Mr. Schnee; the contract is the method, not the reason, for your termination, and I certainly hope you will recognize our ability to enact such methods."

"Are you certain it's wise to enact such methods, as you say, then?" Mr. S leaned forward a touch as he spoke, and if possible the silence in the room seemed to grow even colder.

The Board director reared back, on the edge of sputtering in his indignation. "This board will enact whatever methods it sees fit to preserve the standing of the Schnee Dust Company," he spoke softly, voice seeping with exhausted patience. "As you have made it clear that you are unwilling to cooperate to that purpose, we have no choice but to suspend your right to buy any further stock in this corporation; furthermore, any exchanges you have made within the past twenty four hours are to be considered void on authority of the board of directors of the Schnee Dust Company. Have I made myself clear?"

Mr. S, quite unused to the normally subdued nature of Atleasean higher ups when they yelled at you, was oblivious to the dangerous tension that had risen between himself and the Board Director and which rose ever higher with every exchange. The rest of the board worked their hardest to keep hidden this obvious fact, everyone putting the greatest effort into masking the nervous glances and fearful postures which threatened to overtake them as, in the middle of everything, the Company Head and Board Director decided to kick off an inter-company war over video chat.

To all of this, Mr. S was blind, but he did make note of the arguments the Board Director presented for firing him and...in light of things, he was inclined to believe that the Board Director had some pretty good points. Mr. S was unqualified to run this company as far as he knew, and this could be a relatively easy way out of this predicament...but some things just didn't sit right with him.

Beyond the primordial survival instincts which drove him to avoid getting fired at any cost, there was something about the harrowing ignorance in which he seemed to be situated that unbridled that deeply buried instinct to freeze, as if he were standing on a blind precipice and every compulsion called to hug the floor until morning came.

So, in place of gracefully accepting retirement, Mr. S made it his new goal to fill the time with trivial observations until an informed decision could be made.

This, he did as a safety measure to stay away from anything important until the moment came to act. But of course, often the most vital truths are also the most trivially apparent.

Mr. S spoke at last, eager to break the long silence and in a voice that seemed to carry much meaning: "You certainly speak much on behalf of the board, director Schen," Mr. S said, oblivious to the catastrophic expressions which drew themselves across the shadow masked faces of the board members, as well as the almost painful chill which ran through Director Schen's bones at these words.

Schwarz leaned against the air for support and Winter held together slightly better, if only for the fact that she was still several surprise revelations behind the rest of the room and thus currently unacquainted with the theory that this was happening in the real world.

Director Schen was silent for a moment, finally responding in a calm voice, so heavily concealed with counterfeit serenity that Mr. S mistook it for the genuine article, "I...understand you must be tired. It is obvious we will not have any more productive conversation this night, so I will take my leave of you;"

"Of course," Mr. S replied.

"have a good rest," Director Schen continued, "we will have a very extensive discussion about our situation at another time."

'Shit,' he thought.

"Of course," he said, giving a nod of agreement.

Returning his nod, the board director leaned forward into the light, revealing for an instant his thin, sharply angled body as he reached forward to end the call.

Quietly and without circumstance, the hologram flickered away like a dying candle, and Mr. S was left staring into the space it formerly occupied, knowing to his every certainty that important things had been said and important things had been done through that projection. He could almost feel the important weight of that conversation as it cascaded its portentous mass through every moment and future in this world, and, at this realization, Mr. S felt that, while he could care less, he'd probably have to stop breathing for that to happen.

Mr. S was quick to turn around, ready, almost eager, for action as, despite his ever increasing weariness and steadily evaporating morale, he found himself already trained to confront the coming obstacles he was almost certain that he would have to face. But, in the duration of time it took him to turn around, Mr. S realized that any further occupations were essentially optional; and upon completing his turn and facing the silent, though by no means, subtle demands for answers that came from the audience spread out before him, he stepped forward and continued stepping forward until he passed between the central gap of the curved group, unconsciously stepping over the leg Qrow extended in his direction and consciously ignoring the tracking gazes of everyone in the room as they watched the intensely interesting enigma that was Mr. Schnee, ignore them.

Nobody spoke a word at this, but the awkward silence of unresolved tension and bore of curious stares maddened him, the phantom irritation of unsettled business grew and grew with every step he took to the door, soon spiking high enough so that he, with self loathing frustration, turned back around just long enough to ignore the still questioning looks and say: "If you have any business, feel free to schedule an appointment, I expect I'll be open to visitors by next week at the latest."

With that simple declaration made, he stepped out of his office, now consciously aware of his perfect posture, and he turned down the long hallway, listening to the quick, increasingly nervous, strides Schwarz took as she caught up to follow alongside him.

It didn't take him long to find a familiar section of the castle, quickly orienting himself as he planned a route through the labyrinthine passageways and expansive ceilings he'd come to familiarize himself with over the morning.

Thinking it over for half a second and deciding that he wanted to avoid back-tracking past his office, Mr. S made a sharp right and headed for the elevators. He was going to bed.

For the second time, as he stood listening to the droning music of the elevator car, Mr. S felt quite curious about the fact that, with his destination so near and sweet sleep so fulsome in its attainability...all of his exhaustion seemed to leave him. It wasn't a wakefulness that he felt, exactly, but rather a calm equilibrium that mixed into his body and numbed him to everything, even his tiredness.

Perhaps, he conjectured, the immediate rest he head towards made the need for tiredness unnecessary, since he no longer really required a strong incentive to go do just that. Perhaps...here he felt his jaws lock, holding back a visible yawn as a lightheaded bleariness overtook his senses, the world seeming to fade away into an extended blink until he could force his eyes back open once more and reassert his balance against the disorienting, cushion like, lightness which came with the slowing of the car.

The bell dinged and the doors slid smoothly apart. A heavenly feeling overcame Mr. S as he drank in the slowly expanding view beyond the stainless doors. The white wall beyond almost seemed to shine through the narrow gap between the doors, and this was enough to make Mr. S feel a if he were a convict seeing the bars open for the last time. Of course, to many the sight would have just been a sliver of wall, but to Mr. S, it was a sight of the wall: the wall which made up the hallway that led to the door which lead to the bedroom that contained the bed that he was far too ready to collapse into. All of this flashed through Mr. S's mind in a dreamlike second, only to be brought crashing down in the next.

Schng.

The elevator thunked with a minor, unremarkable sounding note that belied its own, very sinister consequences. For, in the instant Mr. S recognized the sound, the elevator doors froze in their movement.

* * *

The most difficult part of doing nothing was the sudden and completely overwhelming need to look like you were doing something.

The maid in the brown custodial outfit, engaged as she was with stacking the abandoned chairs, did not have this problem. Ruby tried not to whistle as she looked off into a distant corner and twiddled her thumbs. Ruby felt a sudden urge to run out of the room like everyone else had done, but then realized she'd just be lost in a castle with nothing to do, she shook her head at this: best to stay here and wait for Weiss, she thought.

"So…" Ruby directed this remark at Yang, who leaned inquisitively over the office desk, one had braced on either edge of the mahogany and tried to look like she was in the process of stealing company assets or planning a heist, anything other than the nothing which currently occupied her.

"So…" Yang replied, scrunching her brows in appraisal as she ran her eyes blankly over the lacquered woodlines of the desktop.

"What the fuck," Ruby said uncharacteristically and with exasperated breath, commenting on the situation.

"Language!" Yang roared, turning away from the desk to face Ruby, joined in her admonitions by the working custodial maid and managing to startle Blake into awareness.

"Well, what did you want me to say?" Ruby asked, feeling suddenly very attacked.

"I don't know? 'What the heck?' or something? Anything other than dropping an F bomb?." Yang ran a hand through her curls of hair.

"But nothing else makes sense to say!" Ruby pleaded, continuing, "besides, weren't you saying worse when you were my age?" with a skeptical look on her face.

Blake, meanwhile, looked hurriedly around herself.

"Look," Yang appealed tiredly, "you're you, and I'm me," she said with a natural shrug. "And you can't just go and break character like that Rubes; even Weiss managed to keep it together for the most part!"

Ruby took on a regretful look, but, before she could answer, Blake's panicked voice interrupted.

"Where's Weiss!"

* * *

Weiss, was not having a good day. If the scowl adorned on her expression failed to make this clear, the murderous way she stalked the hallways certainly did.

If anyone she didn't trust, like her maid or her therapist or her subconscious, had at that moment asked her: "why are you so angry?" Weiss did not believe that she would have answered with the truth. Not that she had any sights on such conversation in the first place.

As she wandered the long hallways of Schnee Manor, however, and as she took slow, familiar steps through long familiar places, her mind couldn't help but wander to the subject.

The obvious answer eluded her, not because she didn't know it, but because she knew the answer, and was afraid, with the sudden upwell of doubt she felt, that it would not survive any close examination.

Despite these phantom thoughts, the answer itself was, of course, still obvious and she bore that in mind as she set her sights on the well lit corridors ahead and tried to occupy her mind with the distance before her. She thought she was about halfway to his quarters if she took the elevators.

Despite her resolve not to think on the matter, Weiss was faced with an equally pressing resolve to linger in the manor, one she recognized with the relief that overtook her when she saw the elevators were inoperable and that her travel would be delayed by just that much further.

Yet, as she came to face the gleaming marble facades of the gargantuan knights, as well as the equally gargantuan spiral staircase they guarded, she couldn't help the feeling of frustration as her mind drew inexorably closer to the answer she didn't feel the need to be thought aloud.

But, as she looked up into the high distance, where the staircase seemed to blend into the white marble of the castle walls, she couldn't help stating, almost cursing, the obvious. That, no matter the delay, eventually...

She would have to go see her father.

* * *

"Don't worry sir, I'm sure it's just a mechanical malfunction of some sort, the backup systems should come online any moment," Schwaz said tensely, feeling, somehow, less confident saying that now than she had then last time.

Despite the exhaustion that warbled her words, Mr. S could still feel the muted pang of terror that still expressed itself inside his heart, stabbing into him like a hot coal as, more and more, the slight opening of the doors, now their only source of light, seemed like a prison window.

"Ah, there it is," Schwarz said at last, drawing Mr. S's attention to the soft, though steadily strengthening, green light which now filled the room as the doors began to, ever so slowly, open once more as a computerized voice spoke with a gentle, womanly sound…

"Operational error detected, subsystem one engaged, please exit the elevator car and be mindful of other people's luggage. Incase of fire, use operational elevator. In case of-"

Here, the voice stopped, and doors stopped with it, and Mr. S's heart stopped with them.

"Oh, don't worry about that, sir," Schwarz rushed to assure, careful to keep over embarrassment from coloring her voice, "the system has many more backups in place."

Mr. S began, "Well,-"

"Well, well, well, well, well," another voice interrupted, sounding through the small gap of doors in its familiar gravel. "What bad luck you seem to be having these days," the voice continued in its knowing tone, accompanied by a sudden blotting out of the light as a cloaked form paced in front of the opening.

"Qrow," Mr. S said, surprising himself with how composed and calm he sounded, feeling as if he were talking outside himself with how the sound seemed to play inside the metal compartment of the elevator car. "You did this, I assume?"

Mr. S, in his exhausted capacity to keep a coherent train of thought, didn't pay too much heed to his own words, captivated more by the unsolicited realization that he'd never spoken full volume in an elevator car before...strange he'd wait until he was off planet to realize that potential.

"You can assume a lotta things," Qrow languidly strode back and forth in front of the elevator car, his passing shadow blinking over the streaming external lights.

"Operational error detected, subsystem two enga-" the computerized voice faded once more, the doors seeming to jiggle in place.

Qrow, despite his silence, seemed to show a bit of a spring in his step at this.

"What did you do, Qrow?" Mr. S asked, with dreadfully restrained voice as if he were struggling to contain his annoyance at the man. His alertness sharpened at this, even it functioned to heighten his awareness of the blank elevator walls along with his tiredness.

"Nothing provable, Jack, just came to talk," Qrow said, leaving Schwarz to tense and convincing Mr. S, in the span of two seconds, that he'd never hated anyone as much as he hated Qrow at this moment.

"What about?" Mr. S replied genially, feeling his calmer nature lapsing to temper his rage. He was dreadfully aware of his position, and couldn't let anger cloud his judgement on important matters.

"The Fall Maiden," Qrow said, serious if not for the alcohol induced slur which targeted his speech.

Mr. S thought for a moment, reverting to full wakefulness for just long enough to faithfully express the ever more grand hatred he managed to conceive, fully and completely from the idea that this, thirty-something, homeless, failed devil-may-cry cosplayer, who both looked and smelled like he'd forgotten that sullen alcoholism ceased to be a character trait in the seventies, just decided, after an evening of making smart-ass comments, Just decided to trap the most powerful man in the world in a pillow-less elevator, to discuss a freaking pumpkin festival!

Mr. S, despite his own experience with townies, as well as the sham of his current status, felt his hands shake with effort as he barely stopped himself from throwing them up and yelling, with as much disdain as he could muster, the ever more appropriate sounding, "Do you even know who I am?"

In all honesty, Mr. S didn't really feel any true inclination to do something like that, he rarely snapped, and even then only privately. So he decided that he would take pity on the poor drunk, answering, "I've given much thought to the matter, and I'll be sure to let you know once I come t a conclusion. As it stands, however," Mr. S chuffed in a good humored fashion, as if desiring to lighten the mood of a dreadfully serious subject, "well, there isn't much that can be done about it at this moment, is there?"

"Hm," Qrow grunted noncommittally, leaning back against the wall to the side of the elevator.

"Now, I'm quite tired and I have a long day tomorrow, so if you would…" Mr. S trailed the sentence to a close, waiting in the baited silence of the elevator as he felt himself struggle to hold back several yawns. At last, the elevator lights flicked on with abrupt energy, and a wonderful ring cheered through the air as the doors parted.

Mr. S squeezed past the still opening doors, desperate to leave the claustrophobic entrapment and hounded by fears that the doors might freeze once more.

Looking to the left and right of the hallway he ended up on, he could see he was alone save Schwartz, and his tired swirl of thoughts were eager to forget the past and future, content to bask in the strangely nostalgic feeling which seemed to embolden the walls as he headed down the hall toward those beautifully fitted oak doors he could have sworn he left months ago.

Heading up a half step of stairs, he eagerly pressed his thumb to the thumb pad and pushed through the fortress doors before they'd finished opening. Schwarz followed silently behind as they headed into the carpeted floors and exceptionally well lit hallways of the private level. Mr. S felt a nervous shiver run up his back at this, knowing just how close he was now was almost too much to bear.

Every step on the lush velvet brought him closer, and his real excitement seemed to grow, reaching a fervent peak as the glimpse of brown wood peeked ahead, door handles glistening gold and inviting, seeming almost warm to his eyes with how easily he knew they could be opened.

"Ah, Mr. Schnee, so nice to see you!" Ozpin said, standing expectantly in front of those very doors as Glynda stood closely by his side.

Mr. S felt his eyes flash over to the awaiting pair, firmly convinced that he must have edited them out of his vision to not have noticed them. Looking at their faces he could immediately tell they had questions and wouldn't be leaving until those questions were answered.

Pausing in his footsteps, Mr. S glanced longingly back over to those doors which had become so unreachable even as he came so close to them...As he looked at the sight, almost frozen in time, Mr. S was certain, truly and deeply down into his soul, that if this wasn't the feeling which struck Moses on mount Nebo, then he must've been beholding the rough side of the residential district of the promised land.

Mr. S forcing his focus away from the doors, smiled back at the distant figures, greeting, "and you as well, Professor Ozpin!"

Silently, he turned aside and whispered from the side of his mouth, "How did they get in here!"

"Well," Schwarz chuckled, "Professor Ozpin is one of the only three people outside of the Schnee family with access to this level, sir!" almost playfully admonishing in her tone.

"Of course," Mr. S ground out, deciding not to kick them out.

As they approached, Ozpin stepped forward a half step, drawing a hand, palm up, close to his body in a smooth flowing motion, "I appreciate you must be tired," he started seeming to move forward without any effort, "but, may we speak?"

"May we not?" Mr. S replied in a clear, almost desperately hopeful, tone across the distance, himself easily mimicking the gestured body movements in mid-stride.

"Sir!?" Schwarz's indignant tone shocked Mr. S into a partial wakefulness. And, even through the haze, he could easily feel the unsaid words: "Show some respect!"

Looking back at Schwarz, he saw the panicked features flickering expressfully through her sensitively shining eyes and quickly turned back, unable to bare the look coming from someone who ostensibly trusted him.

On turning back, he saw Ozpin chuckling good humouredly while Glynda scowled yet more humorously beside him.

"Comedy doesn't suit you, Mr. Schnee," Glynda clipped out in a brittle tone, eyes flashing as if she were holding back something more that she wanted to say.

"Perhaps so," Mr. S agreed, nodding a respectful bow in her direction as he came close enough to halt, a resilient new mask of wakefulness hardening as he gazed at the two and resolved to see this last thing through.

A sudden pang of guilt flared through him as he thought of how quickly he'd allowed his exhaustion to get the better of him. He was still dealing with important matters, after all, and they wouldn't stop being important just because it was two a.m. or because he let the idea that he was on a different world ease him into acting like a fool.

Looking directly at the pair, he determined to pay full attention to their issue, and he resolved further to look out for dramatic slip ups like that in the future, he'd made far too many this evening as it was…

Focusing back on the issue at hand, Mr. S set at work to ease the ache of muscle and bone and the drowsy mists blanketing his mind.

'They won't take too long,' he told himself convincingly, noting, 'the most urgent messages are the shortest, after all. Besides, this Ozpin guy has an "adult in the room" feel.'

As it was, Mr. S felt his attention called for once more as Ozpin finished his polite bout of laughter. "Perhaps you are more tired than I appreciated," he said with an almost jovial tone, "although, I imagine I should have guessed seeing the day we have all had."

"Of course," Mr. S threw back, equally gregarious.

"Well, despite that, there still remains work to be done, and there are certain matters I would appreciate if you would step in on my behalf," Ozpin said with an almost shocking seriousness that almost mesmerized Mr. S fully out of his weariness, as if the past several seconds of lighthearted laughter had been a story.

"What is it?" Mr. S said, needing no effort to sound invested, almost leaning forward in curiosity with the dreadfully serious expression that came over Ozpin's face, as if the man were still mulling over the matter which still troubled him, as if he had left the critical decision to be made at this moment.

"Well," Ozpin sighed, bringing back a half calmness into the air, looking almost indecisive for all the tumultuous gravity his tone bore, "there are two issues, really. One is a rather minor matter, to be honest, and, officially, it's why I've come to visit you, but the other…"

"But the other?" Mr. S parroted, feeling almost parched as he spoke, tentative.

"The other isn't something to be announced outside of this room, not before its time in any case," Ozpin said simply, but sparing Mr. S none of the impact the words could hold.

"Naturally, we ought to discuss that first, then," Mr. S urged, now unquestionably eager for the information, more curious about this than he had been about anything.

"Its," Ozpin hesitated a moment, sending frantic paroxysms surging through Mr. S as he feared that Ozpin would change his mind at that.

For what seemed ages, Mr. S held the silence, almost afraid to speak lest he drive Ozpin, who still and truly seemed on the brink of indecision, into holding his own silence.

Finally, however, Ozpin spoke, saying…

"It's about the Fall Maiden."

* * *

 **Also semi-major revisions to chapter 1 as well as Chapter 10.**

 **On another note, I've decided to rewrite my Games We Play/ One Punch Man fanfic entirely, the new title is Critical Hit.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

* * *

Weiss felt another wave of epileptic, monochrome sparkles swim across her vision. She'd felt tired, morally and physically, a hollow feeling consorting her makeup as she faced the upcoming event with surprisingly little feeling, all of her emotion overshadowed heavily by the swirling tiredness and painful flashes of illusory light.

Was this how people felt before they had a nervous breakdown? She diagnosed absently, mulling on the thought for a moment before discarding it.

She wasn't sure.

She was certain, however, of the increasingly overwhelming exhaustion which overcame her. She was certainly the most tired person in at least the entire building, Weiss thought confidently and also wrongly.

Traversing the outer curve of the tightly curled staircase, Weiss felt a cold shiver at the sight of the frozen courtyard, the dusky, moonlit scene framed beautifully by the gleaming fern reliefs which seemed to curl around the golden window-lattice.

As seemed to be tradition at this point, Weiss deftly avoided the sight, turning her eyes quietly away from the towering glass and hurrying past. It had been easy, in the heated confrontation of that overcrowded office, for her to ignore the inevitable future. She'd never deluded herself into thinking it could come to anything _other_ than this, but she had, with the irresolute confidence that avoiding thought could provide, dared to hope that, _somehow_ , it wouldn't come to this. The unexamined future was often kinder than the approaching reality, however, and, fully convinced at this point that the world wouldn't be ending at any convenient time frame, Wess marched on. Following the spiraling steps upward she walked around in another half circle, watching the final window come into view from around the sharply curving horizon of marble which made up the wall.

Distracted as she was by the thoughts of what awaited her just beyond the horizon, the cold steel doors and lonely halls, Weiss forgot to look away on her unusually slow traversal past the final window and glimpsed, for a moment, her reflection as it overlay the snow covered gardens outside, ghostly in the streaming moonlight. Weiss couldn't help her glare as she unconsciously paused her step, looking out at the internal courtyard; the purported freedom of the walled space sickened her as much as the perpetually locked windows which graced every wall. Weiss eventually found the strength to move past, her mind focused, rather than distracted, by the tumult of emotions that accompanied the sight. She walked with excruciating slowness up the last of the steps, the majority of her attention occupied by the blatant hypocrisies which she'd lived through obliviously and which now demanded her attention seemingly with every turn of her head.

Weiss paused a soon as the barest edge of the window slipped past her vision, looking forward and moving so slowly that she might have fooled an inattentive glance into thinking her a statue. The window, which stood only inches from her back, seemed as distant from her thoughts as if she'd left it behind in a distant land. Her thoughts, following her view, lay with the doors which she knew stood just around the curving marble that hugged close the space before her. Shaking her head, she once again moved languidly onward, all the while ranting out against every slight against her which the existence of the palace seemed to represent.

Much as it gladdened her to think aloud the things which she could never speak aloud, the thoughts engendered dangerous associations, and she hurried forward as uncomfortable questions arose and unwanted answers seemed anxious to escape her.

As she moved forward, and more white bricks rotated into view, Weiss found, under the high-strung intensity of enquiries which suddenly sprung up, about why she was angry and why she was going to her father of all people, Weiss found that she was almost looking forward to seeing those steel doors; she could almost imagine them as if they were already before her, like colossal guards with expressionless fronts. Weiss breathed a sigh of repose as she felt herself bracing in preparation for the sight, and with her bracing all the complicated thoughts evaporated away.

Breathing once more, Weiss stepped around, following the receding curve of the bare wall and coming face to face with...another window.

That couldn't have been right. Weiss turned around, looking down behind her as if any answers would be there. Had she mis-counted? What?

Weiss stepped forward, past the new window, this time too distracted to care about the sight beyond the heightening attrition that ground at her as she passed it. Putting the matter quickly behind her, Weiss stepped forward, rounding the forward curve and coming to face with...yet another window, identical to the one before.

Against her own admission, Weiss could feel the anomaly was affecting her more than it rationally should have, and this brought on a haunting self-analysis as she thought deeply, chiding herself for the almost embarrassing ease with which her mind fashioned the most fanciful explanations for the anomaly, as well as the even more embarrassing difficulty she faced trying to disarticulate herself of such notions. Fantastic Tales sprung wildly through her imagination, and slowly, distant whimsy turned abruptly into unnatural dread.

She'd just miscounted, she repeated to herself, fatalistic exhaustion doing nothing to obscure her lack of confidence in the statement as she stepped forward, uncaring as she passed the window.

Her steps felt heavy and leadened, limbs fashioned slowly, as if pressing against some odd resistance as an existential terror overtook her, the slowly unravelling curve seeming always to hide the unconscionable horrors her mind involuntarily threw upon itself, as if survival demanded it.

After the conclusion to the great war, a rapid modernization effort washed out across remnant with the newly formed city of Atlas at its center. With this, there also came a rapid dissolution of superstition and folk-lore, well, ostensibly, there was, in any case. For, while most of remnant succeeded in stamping out the primitive talismans and unseasonable convictions of the old world, they only did so with the overt rejection and self abashed concealment of what had once been daily affairs. Atlas, riding the leading edge of this wave, were the quickest to enact this front, upending a thousand years of tradition with blistering reformation. As a result, Atlesians were both the most and least superstitious people of remnant, for while the daily rituals and affronts of the folk was all but erased, it is a fact of human nature that a person can not actively tear themself away from a belief without handing over to it their total heed and consciousness. Most people would live their lives never having to face the ramifications of such a thing, but perhaps once or twice in a generation, an Atlesian might, sufficiently overwrought with the emotions of fate, face something quite similar to those things that the grown ups, and the politicians, and the authority figures, along with everyone else had denounced with a strangely, to a young child's eyes, over emphatic demeanor. How could anyone put such effort into denying what they said were just _stories_ after all?

It was enough to make one suspicious, and, as of now, a very superstitious feeling came over Weiss as she stared, wide eyed and frozen at the curling wall ahead of her, feet stiff as an alien atmosphere descended to displace her tiredness. Memories crawled back of the uncounted nights where she'd been told the story of _Treppewittchen_ , the girl cursed to wander the same corridor for all of eternity because she'd lied, most grievously, to herself. It seemed delusory, head whirling as if she could remember every word of every instance at which her grandmother had, with deeply knowing eyes and the most secretive reverence, told the story to her, told her of the eternally similar corridors, and the hauntingly distant noises that serenade the girl to this day.

"This is stupid," Weiss wanted to say as she moved up one step and more white bricks came into view beyond the stone horizon. 'This is stupid,' she thought, again, very quietly as she ascended yet another step, standing with both feet as she ground her teeth, cursing her silence as she tried to find the will to deny her fears, daring herself to say the words aloud as proof against the anxious terrors that hounded her. Grinding her teeth yet harder, she froze in place, battling with herself for such a time that the bright bricks of the wall seemed to imprint themselves onto her locked eyes.

Daring a glance backwards, Weiss could see the barest edge of the last window behind her. Focusing her eyes, she saw that, from here she could see only the sterile bricks of the opposite wall through the sliver of glass which presented itself to her. Here she indignantly forced down a jump of her heart. She was just unable to see the rest of the garden, she told herself surely. All she would have to do would be to take one step down, and she'd be able to see enough of the window to see the snow dusted plants, plants that wouldn't be there in an eternal corridor, where everything would be made of stone, after al-

Here Weiss interrupted herself with a violent flare of anger. 'This is stupid,' she thought fiercely enough to ignore the fact that she still wasn't saying it out loud. She would _not_ be taking a single step down to confirm something so stupid! She declared with certainty. Clenching her fists and taking stiff steps, she once more ascended the stairs with brittle confidence. In the instant between her initial steps, she thought of many things, but, deep in her mind, an admission prepared itself, perhaps as a token admission of truth that would get her out of here.

Weiss took a step and focused her eyes on the steps before her, chanting with her every footfall: This is stupid, _of course_ there isn't going to be another window, and even if there is I just miscounted, that's all!

Here, Weiss could, with unreasonable certainty, feel that she was _just_ on the edge of making that critical turn and finding out the truth. Blundering herself past trepidation and freezing, Weiss chanted, unheard, even by herself, and with short, huffing breaths.

It's not going to be another window, I obviously just miscounted.

It's not going to be another window, I obviously just miscounted.

It's not going to be another window, I obviously just miscounted.

It's not going to be another window, I obviously just miscounted.

It's not going to be another window. I am going to turn the corner and see those stoopid doors standing there like they always do.

And, why not, she was right.

Weiss was almost more surprised at the sight than she would have been at seeing another window. Frazzled and harried as she was, she couldn't even muster, or perhaps comprehend, any emotional response to the situation. As it was, she couldn't even manage to even play pretend, to say that she'd known all along that the obvious would happen and that she was never afraid of anything at all. The truth was, she _had_ been afraid, as afraid as she'd been of anything in her life. And, like many people who were tired and scared, she found it very easy to see the truth. And, unfortunate as it may have seemed, the truth was exactly what her self mind had prepared on this occasion. In the now fading terror of her supernatural episode, Weiss remembered with distinct clarity the moments just before she made that final turn, when she, in some faithful attempt to combat her fears, had piled together the various truths she'd hidden and effaced, readying, as if, to admit them in the face of damnation. And, as things turned, and she came to face with the doors, she felt herself collapsing under the weight of those truths, catching herself on the top step as she fell onto her hands and looked out at the sight before her.

Filtered light shone onto her from all the gleaming surfaces of the silent level, and the imposing doorways of steel glared out at her like the gates of hell. Somehow, Weiss felt a distinct longing for the eternal corridors she'd just been faced with.

The sight seemed to have a muted tone to it, however. She'd expected to feel something on seeing her father's doorway, but she didn't, not like she'd deluded herself into thinking she would, anyway. It was true, she was angry at him, and rightly so, but, right now, unable to blind herself to it, the truth revealed itself to her peeling away with increasingly intense revelations.

She realized fully the unbearable guilt she bore when Blake's expression fell and fell throughout the day. She realized the bile of self loathing she'd tried to ignore when she realized just how much she'd destroyed her Blake's chance at any sort of happy life. They'd been together for _months_ by this point, they'd sacrificed so, so much, and she'd gambled everything for, for _this._ They should have been happily away from here by now, unashamed of being together, yet here she lay. Blake's white fang membership had been revealed, they'd hurt the SDC in ways she couldn't imagine could be fixed, she'd drawn attention to herself and Blake moments before doing so, and now...now she was here, in the middle of Atlas and carrying the responsibility of Blake's White Fang membership. Perhaps, in another time, she could have rented a room in the lower city with her faunus and decidedly not internationally recognized as a former White Fang member, girlfriend. Yet, here she was...she would have to...

A panicked frenzy of every emotion ran through her at this. She thought that she'd been calm, that she understood what she was doing, but now she realized she'd been lying to herself. That, the thing which she had thought was composure had been nothing more than fading shock. She wanted to scream, but couldn't find the ability, she wanted to run but couldn't find it in her to do so.

With the unbidden truth open before her, Weiss understood, finally understood, that she'd known all along why she was coming here, perhaps she had known it in the instant Blake's White Fang associations had been revealed. No body in Atlas would let them stay the night, absolutely nobody. A cavalcade of riots would appear around Schnee manor before the end of the night, and they'd be a lot closer if she and Blake were outside the manor walls when they happened.

Part of her, a disturbingly large part, had a great desire to be there when those riots happened. She had nothing to fear from some crowds, and they'd take her mind off her father, in any case…

But, Blake: The statement seemed to come as if in answer and justification for all her doubts. She saw how much she'd been hurt today, and she knew how much such a scene could just harm her, hurt her worse than anything. She knew Blake would expect the people, the faunus at least, to understand and take them in…

She shook her head and faced the facts. Another confusing tumult of emotions making her head woozy as she acknowledged that she would have to see her father, and beg him to let them stay in the castle.

Hah, she cried bitterly with a wavering voice. She'd started the night excited for her awaiting freedom, and readying to cut her final ties with _this place_ , and him. Yet, here she was, all but crawling to his door to ask him to let them stay.

The situation was very clear to Weiss now, and as she wrestled with it, another truth became apparent to her. Not particularly obvious, yet at the same time undeniably true, a concluding realization seemed to cap the tumult of truths which whirled around her head, building off of those truths to present itself to her.

With realizations whirling and mind whirring, combining all the facets of her situation in coldly logical fashion, it became quickly obvious to her: Weiss realized: She'd fucked up.

* * *

 **Fun Fact #1021: The first outline of this story was written several years before the first chapter was posted, and was based around the idea that it would be pretty funny if a guy took over Mr. Schnee's body and said "She's such an excellent listener."**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 (Remastered Edition.)**

 **Due to recent responses, I've decided to heavily edit Chapter 14 repost it. If you like the old version of the chapter, it's still around in the comments of the Spacebattles thread for this story.**

* * *

"Ah, but there's always unfinished business, these days, isn't there?" Ozpin commented with fading casualty, continuing, "and, it's a rather important bit of business that's brought me to you today," transitioning so abruptly into resolute sincerity, that it almost mesmerized Mr. S fully out of his weariness, leaving the recent, light-hearted memory of their laughter together feeling altogether distant, and phantasmal.

"What is it?" asked Mr. S, needing no effort to sound invested.

"Well," Ozpin sighed with a resigned air, seeming almost indecisive for all the tumultuous gravity his tone bore, "there are two issues. Really, one is a rather minor matter and, officially, it's why I've come to visit you, but the other…"

"But the other?" Mr. S parroted, feeling almost parched as he spoke, tentative.

"The other isn't something to be spoken of outside of this room, not before its time in any case," Ozpin said simply, but sparing Mr. S none of the impact the words could hold.

"Naturally, that should come first, then," Mr. S urged, now unquestioningly eager for the information.

"It's," Ozpin hesitated a moment, sending frantic paroxysms surging through Mr. S, striking a fear that Ozpin would change his mind, and keep his secret, at that.

For what seemed ages, Mr. S held his silence, afraid even to speak lest he drive Ozpin, who still and truly seemed on the brink of indicition, into holding his own.

Ozpin, either oblivious or uncaring about Mr. S's anxieties, held still with an intensely thoughtful air, as a man might when attempting to navigate a perilous topic and dreadfully aware of the complete loss even a single misstep or word could represent.

Finally, however, as if testament to the ineluctable necessity of the subject, Ozpin spoke, saying…

"It's about the Fall Maiden."

* * *

Schwarz stood quiet and with perfect ease at the back of Mr. Schnee, unmoving except for the rhythmic squeeze of her fists around the edges of the tablet, the sole outward change which stood, lonely, as evidence of the sudden discomfiture that had taken residence in the hallway.

As people always did when they broached sensitive topics, Ozpin ducked quiet in the resulting pause; Glynda, standing beside him, seemed to quite unintentionally act as his foil, every aspect of her posture advertising, loudly, the great discipline she'd mustered in order keep herself from saying out loud those choice words which she was now attempting to express solely through the glares she directed at Mr. S.

Mr. S held his own silence and maintained his own, softer, glare which seemed to be directed at nothing in particular. None of this was done in challenge, but was rather the sole, outward expression of his immense, and by this point resigned, disappointment.

He'd been certain his opinion of these people had bottomed out when they'd trapped him in an elevator, but apparently there were hot springs at rock bottom, with mineral baths capable of curing even the worst case of optimism or hope for humanity.

When the silence extended, and the critical moment came to pass, however, Mr. S merely replied, with strained courtesy, "What about the Fall Maiden?"

In response to his question, Ozpin responded only with a knowing looked which seemed to say, with the kindest expression he could muster, that they _both_ knew what this was all about, and it would be easier for everyone involved if they simply cut to the heart of the matter.

Mr. S felt his expression grow colder, and his tone more brittle at this turn, as he asked, with all the bewildered honesty of those too tired to lie, "did you… expect me to choose who the next one is going to be?" expressing in that statement the patent impossibility he saw in their having come to him over such a matter.

"Oh, we wouldn't ask you to do that," Ozpin said, quick to recall the previous atmosphere of levity as he chuckled, trailing to a pause and waiting for a beat. Once again banking, expressfully, on the all too obvious nature of request he was asking of Mr. Schnee.

The soft silence once again turned solid and imposing, and once again, it became clear that Mr. S wouldn't be cooperating. Ozpin expressed a somber sigh, hiding expertly the face of a man who didn't want to say his request aloud, as if doing so might highlight the impossibility of it.

"The Fall Maiden," he paused, thinking carefully over his words, "is in quite a precarious situation at the moment, as you well know, and there's no better place for her to be than at Schnee Manor. We request that you allow her to stay here until things can be sorted out at Beacon," relapsing instinctively into that vestigial formality he often forewent in the company of those he'd grown close to.

"Oh, is that all?" Mr. S said aloud, surprised, not unpleasantly, that they hadn't asked him to bribe some judges or otherwise donate money to a good cause.

Of course, to the ears of those who knew Mr. Schnee's opinions, and who, for some reason, expected the man before them to be familiar with Mr. Schnee's opinions, that statement was nothing other than the absurd peak of sarchasm.

Glynda's expression only grew more aggressive at the barb, and Ozpin, for his part, only maintained that stony expression which he'd prepared to face just this sort of response.

"Yes," Ozpin replied curtly, not willing to show his disappointment, "that's all.".

Mr. S paused for the requisite five seconds of consideration such important an important matter required, taking the moment to count out five seconds inside his head as he readied to spit out the answer which, by his calculations, would get them to leave sooner.

During this interval of fake consideration, Schwarz, torn between the apologetic looks she rushed to express to each side of the argument, fell back with a hopeless look, wishing to forge an instant reconciliation, but all too aware that the subject had moved far beyond that the moment Ozpin spoke of the Fall Maiden.

Glynda, in contrast, merely deepend her glare, sharp eyes glancing aside at a hidden moment to meet with Ozpin's own, expressing quietly the resolve which they knew wouldn't let them leave with a "no" answer.

"Of course," Mr. S said lightly, tone soft and having come down considerably from that earlier hardness which overtook it, a testament to the great difficulty which Mr. S faced in attempting to maintain his anger.

"I understand how much I'm asking of you," Ozpin began, bargaining with the tone of a man who understood how much he was asking of someone... and then Ozpin stopped, brows scrunched as the answer registered.

Glynda, for her part, was more confused, at first, by the fact that Ozpin failed to finish his prompt, which would have signaled for her to play "Bad Cop", as Qrow had termed it in their planning discussions, and only then by the fact that "Mr. Schnee" had given the wrong answer!

Schwarz, by this point, having made up her mind that she would try to convince Mr. Schnee to help them, looked up at Mr. S with a confused expression that did nothing to mar the delight and awe which expressed itself in her at the undeniable empathy shown by her boss that day.

Ozpin didn't get to where he was by fumbling through opportunities, however, and was quick on the recovery. "I'm glad to see we can still count on the Schnee family, Jacquez," he spoke, in a personal and deeply friendly way which seemed to all but shine through his eyes.

"Always," Mr. S smiled back.

Ozpin, turning his palm inwards as a sign of departure, bowed slightly as he spoke, "well, I'm sure we've kept you long enough," he began.

Mr. S matched the motion, thinking, 'ya think!'

"We'll be on our way," Ozpin announced, and Mr. S, once again aware of the ever deepening, sickening exhaustion that wound through his mind, never imagined that those words could sound so sweet.

* * *

Mr. S was aware, of course, that whatever it was he'd just agreed to was likely to be something he'd regret, but, luckily for him, he'd gotten quite used to regretting things at this point, and future Mr. S, who's problem this was going to be, was likely to be even better at it thanks to recent events!

Mr. S consoled himself with these thoughts as he walked them back to the doors. Ozpin and Glynda walked in unison to his left, keeping pace while, on his right, Schwarz trailed slightly behind, working furiously at her tablet.

"...of course, we can discuss the details at another time," Ozpin continued, "I still have that other matter I would like to speak to you about, so perhaps then, if you can fit us into your schedule." Ozpin said, talking languidly and walking languidly as he turned an attentive glance towards Mr. S.

"I've already worked it in," Schwarz responded, not looking up from the tablet as she scrunched her eyes in concentration, light gleaming brilliantly off her snow white skin as the screen reflected prominently in her charcoal eyes.

"Efficient as always, I see," Ozpin nodded in acknowledgement, stepping smoothly through the moving doorways and facing back slightly to where Mr. S stopped at the boundary, departing with the words: "Another time, then."

"See you," Mr. S returned with a gesture, spotting a final glimpse of their retreating forms as they rounded the corner before turning back to Schwarz with a tired sigh, just in time to see her stowing away the tablet.

"Well, sir, that just about finishes our day," Schwarz said, an expectant energy in her voice, "and just on schedule too!" smiling in a way that expressed, all by itself, that she'd been trying to tell a joke. Schwarz did not fail to draw an appreciative smile from Mr. S in turn, if not for her comedic flare, then perhaps solely for the fact that she didn't lock him inside an elevator today.

"That's good to hear," Mr. S replied, breathing in a suddenly relieved sort of way with the departure of what were, by his current estimation, his second and third greatest enemies following Qrow. Tired as he was, however, he was only half successful in preventing that relieved sigh from becoming a tired yawn, moving a hand up to cover his mouth before once again blinking forcefully to draw the lethargy from his eyes.

"Oh, you must be tired!" Schwarz exclaimed, almost bashful at having kept him so long, "I'll, leave you, then. See you tomorrow! Goodnight!" Schwarz cried, almost dashing to the wide, five-flight of stairs, barely giving Mr. S enough time to respond, warmly:

"Goodnight, Schwarz!"

Mr. S reached the wooden door in a daze, having walked the carpeted path from the metal doors with a zombie like stride and empty gaze, as if in attempt to induce sleepwalking. Alas, much to his regret, he was still very much awake when he reached the bedroom doors, extensively aware, through the haze of consciousness, of every particle of time his hand seemed to pass through as it reached for the embroidered door knob.

When his hand reached the critical point, the distorted reflections of his fingers moving in the brilliant gold of the knob, Mr. S was so tired and so sufficiently mesmerized by the sight that, for a perverse moment, he imagined that he could be _interrupted_ now; that, after everything, with literal inches between him and the bedroom entrance, it could all be torn away from him…

It seemed impossible for this to happen in any sane universe. The idea just felt wrong to Mr. S on a spiritual level, as if there were some rule of morality or fairness protecting him from further interruption now that he'd reached this point. But maybe…

Mr. S was piqued for a flashing instant by this idea, so firmly, for that instant, did the horror of it take grip of him that he, at first, thought that he was imagining the rain of knocks coming from the metal doors.

* * *

 **Fun Fact #2143: There are, as of now, at least 10,000 numerical slots for these story related fun facts available.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

* * *

 **Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!**

It at first amazed and delighted Mr. S when he discovered, so gradual and unnoticed had been the pace of his discovery, that there was a full and complete language to knocks.

And not a crude, utilitarian language of patterned noise and logical sequence like JavaScript or German, either, but a full language of great artistry, with as much rhythm and cadence as could be found in any poem or asteroid impact.

Soon after buying his house, Mr. S learned how to decipher these messages hidden in the knocks, over the years developing a sensitive ear to their subtleties. He could sift the intended meaning from almost any knock, predicting from it the purpose its creator, with visitations ranging from "Trick or Treat," to "Girl Scouts!" to even "Have you accepted Jesus as your lord and savior?"

And it was through this common exchange that Mr. S realized, weather it was your candy, your money, or your soul, nobody ever knocked at your door unless they wanted something from you.

And, despite currently being on a completely different world, outfitted with an entirely alien vernacular of knocks, he could still recognize the current intent of the impacts coming from the metal doors, ones which, on earth, would roughly have translated to: **Police! Open Up!**

 **Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!**

The impacts were like those of a sledgehammer against anvil, producing an unnaturally loud flash of thunderous noise which seemed barely able to fit it's great bulk into the hallway.

 **Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang Bang!**

As Mr. S approached closer to the unnaturally static metal of the doors, he found himself surprised by how much louder the knocks, and in proportion, his anger, seemed to grow with proximity.

Although, it must be noted that Mr. S was not truly angry about the interruption to his sleep, but rather about the interruption itself, annoyed in a metaphysical way as the nature of interruption, like those of any concept, was dependent fully upon-

 **Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!**

His eyes fluttered shut with every knock now. Each pail of noise hammered into his eardrums like an iron spike, triggering incessantly that instinctive defense mechanism.

Beyond this animal flinching, however, the higher portions of his personality were still buzzing with purpose, and, driven forward by the urgency of the moment, stumbled fortuitously upon an old memory, one which, at the moment, he took to be nothing more than random trivial about the working structure of the Japanese language, but, when applied to this very situation-

 **Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang!**

Mr. S cursed venomously under his breath and rushed forward with hard steps against the oncoming cacophony, finding his rage preserved in the noise even as his thoughts fled.

Falling gradually faster, Mr. S had broken into a slow run by the time he traced the final few steps, desperate to reach the doors before the next set of knocks could come, ears ringing tenderly inside his skull.

Nerves rising with his proximity to the seemingly lurking, and absolutely temporary, silence, Mr. S set to work with frenetic pace.

Gripping one of the over sized handles, Mr. S wrenched his arm backwards, pulling violently at the structure.

The door, a thick, metal affair which, by itself, guarded half of the eleven foot high entrance to the hall, did not need to be unlocked from the inside and, with whirring motors, swung smoothly open to the guiding motions of his hand.

Mr. S, feeling intensely the painfully slow passage of time his exhausted perspective existed in, did not wait for the door.

Weaving nimbly past the hulking iron slab, Mr. S forged into the opening, tuning down his, by then, wrathful charachicheture of an angry expression, replacing it, instead, with a finely constructed facade of controlled disdain.

Looking, first, out at the distant stairway, Mr. S then turned his head down, where he saw Weiss placed close before him, a wide, solid stance supporting her body while a tight fist hung frozen above her head, mid-knock. All of this was drawn together by the self righteous and combative note which bordered at the sharp edge of her features and burned hot in the blue of her expressive eyes.

"What!?" Mr. S all but snarled, impatient rage bubbling together with a recoiling apprehension at the prospect of dealing with Weiss again, to format his, in hindsight, overzealous reaction.

The great, booming voice of Mr. Schnee crashed through the serene surroundings, seeming to travel down every hall and haunt every pathway as it did so.

Weiss, Mr. S observed, attempted to brace herself against her father's words and, to his perfect surprise, failed completely in the attempt.

The now clear bluff of confidence she'd worn as a mask not seconds earlier, crumbled hastily away like a mirage in the wind; the natural, refined grace and ease of purpose which once characterized the heiress disappeared with it, displaced, instead, by a jittering uncertainty and vulnerable presence which seemed to bely her every action.

With an inflecting rebound, Mr. S found his defensive anger quickly smothered underneath the obstructive reality of another emotion entirely, he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was...

Weiss, in the meantime tried hastily to, hide within herself, her panicked attempts to do so only formenting the continual breakdown she seemed to be suffering.

Oh, yes, that emotion was shame. There was just something about yelling at a confused teenage girl in the body of her own father that brought that up.

Still, a flame of an anger too long suppressed lashed out against the guilt, and the deepening inertia of his consciousness did nothing to expedite the tarring slow with which the vivid momentum of his emotions seemed now to change.

Mr. S cleared his throat, fixing his tie in a self soothing action as he did so. "What do you want?" he asked, not bothering to filter the annoyance from his voice and interrupting Weiss's rapidly failing attempts to reconstruct her shield.

Weiss looked up as if just noticing him. She fumbled, straightening herself out into a stiff rendition of a formal stance, dressing herself in a decidedly distant expression as she fixed her jaw and stared, defiant, into his eyes.

She performed these practiced motions, not with the comfortable grace of a consummate heiress, but as a child might, when blockily attempting to copy directed actions which could never come naturally to her.

This juvenile appearance was juxtaposed, however, by the rich, unaffected voice with which she spoke; tinged with sadness, like hollow porcelain, proud and delicate, the words came: "you forgot to give us our room passes."

This, she said with such natural expectation and cool confidence, that even Mr. S could tell she was negotiating.

"Really?" his voice pitched with insincere shock, "I don't remember being responsible for your passes," he said, putting a hand up to his chest.

Weiss scowled slightly, releasing a short, frustrated breath through her nostrils. Speaking once again in a slow, deliberate tone: "We just need-"

"I'm not seeing how what you need is an argument for why I should help you at all," Mr. S replied, incorrigible rage still fuming at that latest, stinging interruption, as well as the mounting train wreck of a day for which he felt he was only partly responsible. "Good bye, Weiss." Biting cold etched into his words, "take it as a lesson to plan ahead next time." Waving with a dismissive finality, he turned away, moving the door to close behind him.

Crashh!

The door metal rung out like a discordant instrument, shaking almost painfully in his grip as it crashed to a hard stop. Mr. S felt painfully through his ringing bones the surprising momentum the door had carried. Spinning about, Mr. S found Weiss straddled half across the entrance, one foot stepping lightly on the carpet while a hand braced heavily against the stainless door; as she did, she looked pleadingly up at him, a dejected weight seeming to drag on every aspect of her character.

"Look," she ground, shutting her eyes before blinking them open once again with an intense, though quickly fading, fury, "I...realize I've made mistakes, and that I've hurt you; but, don't pretend that you haven't hurt me, either!"

She stopped now, gathering the moment to recapture her disjointed thoughts. "I just...I'm begging you, ok. Is that what you wanted to hear? It...wouldn't be good for us to stay out there," she gestured weakly with her free hand at some undefined location.

Again, Weiss paused, attempting vainly to shore her argument with substance. Pitiful excuses and unworkable pleas discarded themselves, one after the other, before her rapid analysis, running blazingly through every aspect and character she'd seen in her father, forcing an objective outlook until a desperate gamble appeared, carried on the wings of a distant memory...

"If you were ever serious, when you told me you only held my best interests at heart," she looked up at him, an immense depth expressing itself in her wavering eyes, "then listen to this one request."

She paused again, nervousness melting away, "You know I've never asked anything of you before," she trailed to a soft finish, speaking with a purpose that was half questioning in its demands.

Weiss slumped forward with effort, gritting her teeth and balling her fist as if a lingering, physical pain ran through her body, unable to focus any mind on the disjointed mess of a sentence she'd cobbled together under such conditions.

And, it is to Weiss's credit that she managed such an effort despite her certainty that it was doomed to failure. Even as she spoke, she made desperate contingencies, wondering if, perhaps, Blake might be shielded from the worst of the fallout if they stayed in separate locations. They might be able to-

"Ok," Mr. S replied, voice quiet, and with an unreadable quality tinging it.

Weiss straightened, blinking away her surprise. She felt...thankful, she realized, diagnosing herself with all the dispassionate analysis of a stranger. It was a strange sort of thankfulness, however, one which wouldn't allow itself to be associated with the man before her. She stood unmoving, not knowing quite what to say or do under the circumstance except to face her father, lower her fist and give a wholly inauthentic, "thank you," with a clipped and robotic voice.

"Don't," Mr. S spread his hand towards her as if making a shield; closing his eyes and turning his head to the side, he released a long breath before facing her once more, "...nevermind," he said, painedly, "just go ask Schwarz to get you a pass, tell her I said to do so… ." For the first time exhaustion was apparent in his posture.

Mr. S turned softly to leave when he was interrupted once more, this time by, what was, essentially, quite a simple question, one which under no circumstances need have taken more than a moment of his time.

"Where is Schwarz's room?" Weiss asked, and Mr. S felt his eyes twitch.

The thing about simple questions is: it doesn't matter how simple they are, if you don't know the answer.

"You know what -" Mr. S said, turning around with beleaguered enthusiasm and what seemed to be measured consideration "- we shouldn't bother Schwarz with this, she's had a long day. I'll get those passes for you myself."

Weiss, really didn't want to have her father personally come out to hand out room passes to her friends. In fact, she really didn't want, or plan, for that matter, to stay on the same continent as her father for the foreseeable century.

So, it came naturally when she said, "of course," with her own falling expression, rapidly coming to the realization of how little bargaining power she'd come out with under the situation.

"Excellent!" Mr. S said, shooting her a friendly smile.

"Great!" Weiss replied, giving him a "go fuck yourself," smile.

* * *

 **The working title of this story was "The Secret Life of Mister Schnee." It changed just before publication; either on a whim or because of a typo, the memory's fuzzy.**


End file.
